Opinion-Editorial NEWS

The problem of disputed billings of the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) came up last May when customers, under lockdown since March, received their bills for the previous months. The Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) had issued a directive that distribution services like Meralco may use the rule on estimated billing with the word “estimate” written on the bill and stating that the corresponding adjustments will be made as soon as practicable.The subsequent complaints became the subject of a Senate hearing in which Meralco said its estimates had been based on previous bills for the months of December and January when, it said, consumption was lower than in the summer months.

The government has been assisting our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) who have decided  to come home after many years  of work in many countries. It is only fair that the government help our OFWs who have long been responsible for a major portion of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Now that they are the ones in need of help, the government has set aside P5 billion under the Bayanihan law for the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) for the repatriation and other assistance to OFWs.

The Philippines is involved in a number of disputes over territories in lands around the South China Sea (SCS). At the center of our dispute with China  is its claim that it owns the entire territory covered by a nine-dash line looping down  rom China, around the South China Sea, up the western coast of the Philippines, then sweeping northeast to include Taiwan.

“The wheels of justice continue to grind despite the COVID-19 pandemic,” Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Diosdado M. Peralta said Friday, as he announced the resolution of  825 cases even if members of the court had to deliberate on them through technology while working at home due to the lockdowns.

One month after Anak kalusugan partylist Rep. Mike Defensor, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, charged that the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) lost P153.76 billion from 2013 to 2018 due to overpayments and fraud, various irregularities have been charged in its operations, and the names of so many officials have come up in a negative light.

Many Filipinos are among the thousands who volunteered for the Phase III trials of a COVID-19 vaccine in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi said. The tests are being undertaken by the Group 42 (G42) healthcare station at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center, which has 180 Filipino nurses and one doctor involved in the vaccine tests.

Many nations are still grappling  with the deaths and the health problems raised by the COVID-19 as the global death toll surpassed 800,000, with infections rising in Spain, Italy, Germany, in Western Europe, in South Korea in Asia, and in the United Sates, Brazil, and Mexico in the western  hemisphere.

Amid the many problems the nation is now confronting in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic — the continuing infections and deaths, the looming economic repercussions, and the impact on the personal lives of countless Filipinos – we must  carry on with various other concerns and issues affecting the nation.

The Philippines continues to rely greatly on its fellow Asian nations, notably China, in its ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was highlighted in a webinar co-hosted by the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS) and the Philippine Studies Center (PSC) of Jinan University this July.

After Russia  announced  it has approved  its anti-COVID-19  vaccine  “Sputnik V”  and will administer  it to its teachers and health  workers  in October,   China  announced this week  that it too has approved its  vaccine, saying  tests  have shown  it is “safe  and generates an immune response.”

We can expect a rise in COVID-19 infections with the easing of restrictions in Metro Manila from Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ) to General Community Quarantine (GCQ), because more people movement will now be allowed and a greater deal of the responsibility of keeping infections down will fall on the people themselves.

One immediate response of our government to the COVID-19 pandemic has been the release of thousands of inmates in danger of infection and death in the nation’s congested prisons.

Japan last Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of its surrender in  World War II on August 15, 1945. with Emperor Naruhito  expressing  “deep remorse” over  the country’s wartime actions,  which included the occupation of the Philippines for three years in 1942-1945.

The result of the July 3-6 poll of Social Weather Stations (SWS) on the people’s perception on their quality of life in the last 12 months was perhaps to be expected in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

School year 2020-2021 for public schools was scheduled to open one week from today, on Monday, August 24. It has now been moved 35 days to Monday, October 5, by President Duterte on recommendation of the Department of Education (DepEd).

The two-week “time-out” given to medical frontliners by President Duterte is “not enough” to relieve the stress and address the problems of the healthcare system, Quezon Rep. Angelina Tan, chairwoman of the House Committee on Health, said Sunday. She suggested that more time be given for the situation to stabilize and the government to come up with a plan to address the problems.