Council: Tap civil society

CEBU, Philippines —  The Cebu City Council wants civil society to be involved in plotting the city’s “bounce-back plan” from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The council said civil society organizations are important stakeholders in the collective effort in rebuilding the city, once dubbed as the epicenter of the crisis in the country.

The city is now under general community quarantine and officials are optimistic it can transition further down to modified GCQ come September.

The council has asked that the city’s executive and legislative departments come together in assessing and formulating a comprehensive socio-economic strategy, which should take into consideration fundamental components such as economic recovery program, public health, inclusive education, support for the poor and other vulnerable groups, fiscal and resource generation measures, among others.

Councilor Alvin Dizon sponsored a resolution in this regard, which the council approved on Wednesday, August 19, 2020.

Dizon said the economic impacts of the pandemic are already being felt in the city with more businesses slowing and closing down and ordinary Cebuanos hungry and jobless.

"Despite Cebu City’s initial gains in slowly reducing its positivity rate in the past weeks, the same cannot be reason to be complacent given the unpredictable nature of the virus and the proven fact that when restrictions are being eased, there is always the risk of resurgence of cases," Dizon said.

Dizon said the pandemic, without doubt and like never before, has been the toughest test for the entire country and the city’s economy and healthcare capacity.

He said that it is projected that it will be a rough road to recovery as it has been seen that trade-offs between economic recovery and health will remain a big challenge to both the private and public sectors.

"There will likely be no quick fix or recovery but policies can be formulated to first protect public health and create conditions that will allow gradual and calculated economic recovery to begin," Dizon said.

"Both the Legislative and Executive departments of the Cebu City government need to work alongside to get through these crisis and help rebuild our city back better and more resilient, sustainable and just," he added.

Cebu City has unlocked a key milestone in its fight against the coronavirus after having “flattened the curve” of new infections following three weeks of sustained low indicators.

Curve flattened

The other day, Ret. Major General Melquiades Feliciano said Cebu City, which was dubbed as the epicenter of the pandemic in the Philippines in June, has flattened the COVID-19 curve successfully.

“Ang mga statistics ngayon, especially the number of cases, shows that the curve has been flattened,” he said.

Feliciano is the deputy chief implementer of the Inter-Agency Task Force in Cebu.

“In the past seven days, we had an average of 20 (new cases) per day. There were days (when cases were) less than 10 and some more than 20. As for mortalities for the past week, it’s only less than 1 -- at 0.4 deaths per day,” Feliciano said.

Data from the Department of Health (DOH)-7 on August 19 showed Cebu City only had eight additional cases. Three days before that, there were only seven. — JMO (FREEMAN)