covid 19 opinion essay tagalog

Pisay student tops essay writing tilt on COVID-19

A Grade 12 student of the Philippine Science High School-Western Visayas Campus (PSHS-WVC) emerged as Grand Prize winner in the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Tropical Medicine and Public Health (SEAMEO TROPMED) Network 55th Founding Anniversary Essay Contest.

Altair Mizar Emboltura bagged the Grand Prize after besting 210 entries in the Senior High School Category from the member-countries of the SEAMEO TROPMED, the PSHS said in a statement on Saturday, Oct. 16.

Emboltura’s winning piece is titled, “A Thief, A Tyrant, A Teacher”. In his essay, Emboltura, editor-in-chief of PSHS-WVC’s school paper Banaag, discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic significantly redefined aspects of life.

This year’s theme of the SEAMEO TROPMED essay writing contest is “What COVID-19 means to me”. It focused on the integration and inter-relation between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) # 3 “Good Health and Well-being” and SDG # 4 “Quality Education”, according to the PSHS.

Among the objectives of the essay writing competition were to gather information related to COVID-19 effect on students; motivate students to write and discuss their perspectives about COVID-19; promote listening to students’ voices; and document these perspectives for further use in school programmes and policies.

Emboltura cited the crucial role of the youth in the country’s fight against COVID-19.

“I believe in the power of the proactive youth. Our role in winning the battle against COVID-19 includes inspiring, impacting, and speaking up not just for our fellow youth but for our whole community as well. However, all of our dedication, effort, and active participation would be put to waste if our leaders won’t listen to us,” he said.

“I call unto our leaders to not just hear us but also listen to us because our voice matters, especially in this unprecedented time,” he added.

The PSHS said the student leader is planning to pursue either biology, public health, or an accelerated medicine course in college, but his ultimate goal is to be a physician for the Filipino people.

Emboltura expressed hope that the healthcare workers will receive the necessary assistance from the government, including wage hike and hazard pay.

“Young people like me have been championing change in our fight against COVID-19 from the very beginning. As digital natives, social media became our biggest platform to speak up, to initiate and conduct countless community projects especially for the underprivileged and marginalized sectors of our society, and to advocate for noble causes such as the #NoStudentLeftBehind,” he said.

Emboltura was named as Young Achiever Awardee by the Municipality of Oton, and Outstanding Student of Iloilo Awardee 2020 by JCI Regatta.

He was also selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Junior High School Students of Iloilo for Academic Year 2019-2020 by The Outstanding Students Circle of Iloilo (OSCI).

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COVID-19 vaccines in the Philippine context

Several months and over 400,000 COVID-19 cases later, the Philippines has begun its long-awaited and promised process of acquiring vaccines as a means to end the pandemic. As early as April, President Duterte spoke optimistically of the prospects of a vaccine. Realistically, however, we must be aware of the realities of vaccination in the recent past in order to truly ensure its success.

Before looking at the advances of COVID-19 vaccine technology, it is important to look at the role immunization has played in the Philippine health care system. Indeed, this has been one of the cornerstones of preventive care for disease not just of childhood (mumps, chickenpox) but eventual adult concerns (HPV, pneumonia) as well. Yet despite the government’s Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) and the National Immunization Program (NIP), the country has seen a drop in population coverage, leading to the resurgence of vaccine-preventable illnesses such as measles, diphtheria, and even poliomyelitis in the past decade. The Philippines’ circulating vaccine-derived polio cases in 2019-2020 placed us on a list with African countries struggling to end the transmission of this disease.

Many attribute the dismal immunization coverage to the dengue vaccine scandal, but while it doubtless eroded vaccines confidence in the Philippines, our immunization programs have actually been problematic long before Dengvaxia, failing to reach the coverage goal of 95 percent for many years now. The scandal only represented the nadir of what’s already been an alarming trend.

In fact, when it comes to timeliness of vaccination, the 2017 National Demographic and Health Survey showed only a 10.6 percent rate for all vaccines (ranging from 38 to 67 percent per vaccine). The gaps in delivery boil down to the quality and accessibility of our public health system, which, during the recent polio vaccinations, for instance, relied heavily on private sector support. It also faces a lot of challenges when it comes to maintaining the cold chain.

Looking forward to the COVID-19 vaccines, there have been major breakthroughs, the speed and complexity of which have never been encountered before. Of those nearing approval, there are two mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer—both requiring negative temperatures in their delicate handling. There are also the vector-based vaccines from Astra-

Zeneca and Gamaleya’s Sputnik V, as well as China’s inactivated vaccines developed by Sinopharm and Sinovac, all of which will only need normal refrigerated temperature.

Beyond the vaccine type, its corresponding handling, and the limitations of our health infrastructure, a major concern is the potential politicization of the acquisition, prioritization, and distribution protocols that will be put in place. There have been conflicting reports on who will be vaccinated first—health workers, vulnerable individuals, the poor, and uniformed personnel—according to different government agencies. There is also a need to address people’s concerns about the vaccines, from fears of being made “guinea pigs” to misconceptions about side effects and efficacy.

Surprisingly, there are reports of politicians having already received the vaccine, even if no emergency use authorizations have been granted by the local FDA. The vaccine “czar,” Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr., also mentioned that equitable access to the vaccine will only be achieved by 2022—an election year, which may bring about a predicament not unlike that of Dengvaxia in 2016, which some quarters allege was funded and launched for political considerations. These issues once again raise the danger of politicizing vaccination, especially if the process for prioritization will have potential interference from vested interests. With the urgency called for by the still uncontrolled pandemic, the success of not just the COVID-19 vaccine, but also of the entire vaccination institution in our country, hangs in the balance.

In the end, however, the solution for COVID-19 goes beyond vaccination. The World Health Organization reminds governments of the continuous need to strengthen their countries’ health system to provide for adequate testing, tracing, quarantine, treatment, and monitoring, aside from the provision of essential services. States must invest in public health to strengthen the infrastructure for pandemic preparedness, and to ensure the well-being of all, now more than ever.

Joshua San Pedro, MD, and Gideon Lasco, MD, PhD, are both physicians and anthropologists.

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Editorial: Covid-19’s remedy is with us

• BusinessMirror
• September 22, 2020
• 3 minute read

WE have entered the sixth month of community quarantine, imposed at various levels across the archipelago, and still we are seeing the highest number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia.

As of September 20, the total number of infected persons in the country had reached 286,743, with the daily reported new cases averaging above 3,000 this month. While painfully recognizing that every single death is a tragedy for all, the one mitigating note in the Philippines’s Covid situation is the relatively low death rate. As of September 20, the death toll stood at 4,984. And yet, the danger is so real to the vulnerable populations that businesses have had to tiptoe around imposing strict protocols—sometimes revised at a dizzying pace—as they try to reboot.

Blaming the government and concerned state institutions has become the favorite pastime of many Filipinos on social media. People tend to look outward and put blame on others, instead of focusing on what they can do on their own to help curb the spread of the disease. Despite the consistent public calls of local and international government and health agencies, some people still choose to ignore protocols in practicing the minimum health standards. It has not helped that the safeguard deniers have clothed their defiance of protocols with the apparent double standard—certain powerful people were not sanctioned for their own breaches of quarantine rules.

Beyond enforcement, we also must consider the violations as a reflection of the nation’s health-seeking behavior and attitude; nay, a combination of several factors, not least of which is the overwhelming need of those impacted by lockdowns to go out and do something, anything, to earn something to feed families forced into begging the past months.

Meanwhile, it is good to note that some groups have already risen above the blame game and elevated the Covid-19 discussions to what every individual can contribute while the world scrambles for medicines to cure the infected and vaccines to end this pandemic.

Just recently, the Acting President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, said that a more holistic approach to the responses to the pandemic should consider proactive promotion of a positive mindset that gives flesh to the values of love, compassion, prudence and patience. This, most especially at a time when many people are experiencing uncertainty with the unprecedented loss of lives, jobs and economic slowdown. While some would probably question the relevance of the church in the pandemic issue, recall that even Justice Secretary Menardo Jimenez acknowledged the capability of the faith-based sector in helping Filipinos undergoing mental health and psychosocial problems. “ Pananagutan sa bawat isa [Looking out for each one],” David had said, will give rise to the consciousness of accountability; that our actions, or inaction, will affect other people. Every Filipino can help by channeling the spirit of bayanihan (concerted effort and heroism) and our demonstration of malasakit (concern) to each human being. In fact, these core values were actually communicated in a public service ad by Filipino company Unilab with the tag line, “ Malasakit ang kailangan upang Covid-19 ay mapigilan .” The simple but powerful campaign constantly reminds the people around us—from family members to strangers—to always practice the minimum health protocols, and to gently nudge anyone who fails to comply. With a smile that conveys an earnest desire to protect the other—and not to impose—one can simply signal even a stranger in a public place to put on a mask or face shield, or at least wear this properly, and to practice physical distancing. In a word, the message is simple: “I protect you, you protect me.”

We sink or swim in this country so we have no other choice but to move as one. And we cannot simply pin all our hopes on the discovery of a vaccine that is supposed to provide immunity. This is the best time to let the Filipino spirit take us through this pandemic. As one Facebook post said, “Pandemic ka lang, Pilipino kami .”

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Coronavirus Disease 2019

Filipino responses to covid-19, research documents filipino panic responses to the global pandemic..

Posted April 30, 2020 | Reviewed by Kaja Perina

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By Georgina Fairbrother

A recent study explored panic responses to COVID-19 in the Philippines. COVID-19 has been declared a global pandemic and has caused mass lockdowns and closures across the globe. An angle relatively unexplored amidst this global pandemic is the impact of COVID-19 on mental health. The survey conducted was a mixed-method study that gathered qualitative and quantitative data in order to better explore the different dimensions of panic responses.

The survey was conducted through convenience sampling by online forms due to government-mandated limitations of social contact and urgency. The online survey ran for three days and gathered 538 responses. The average age of a survey participant was 23.82, with participants ranging in ages from 13-67. 47% of those who completed the survey were working, 45.4% were students and 7.6% were not working. Of those who completed the survey, 1.3% had witnessed direct exposure to a COVID-19 patient, while 26% had witnessed exposure within their community, and 72.7% had not been exposed.

For purposes of the survey, the Health Anxiety Inventory (HAI) Short Week was adapted in order to test illness anxiety on COVID-19 amongst Filipinos. The HAI had four main sections used in this survey: 1) Symptoms of health anxiety (hypochondriasis), 2) Attitudes towards how awful it would be to develop COVID-19, 3) Avoidance, and 4) Reassurance. Responses to questions answered within these areas were scored on a 0-3 basis, compromising the quantitative portion of the study. To complete the qualitative section of the survey three open-ended questions were used. The open-ended questions used for qualitative purposes in this survey were:

“1. What came to your mind when you knew the existence of COVID-19? 2. How do you feel when you know the existence of COVID-19? 3. What actions have you done with the knowledge of existence of COVID-19?”

Upon completion of the survey, researchers were able to analyze data in regard to five different areas. First, researchers discovered that it was very evident that respondents were experiencing moderate illness anxiety in all four aspects listed by HAI. Secondly, by comparing locations, researchers also discovered that respondents residing in Metro Manilla exhibited less avoidance behavior compared to respondents residing outside Metro Manilla. While there is no definitive reason for this result, speculation looms around education , awareness, and proximity to COVID-19 cases. Thirdly, researchers looked at occupation, but determined illness anxiety was present regardless of occupation. Fourthly, researchers determined that respondents who had been in direct contact with those having COVID-19 were more likely to exhibit symptoms of hypochondriasis compared to respondents who had not witnessed or contacted anyone with COVID-19.

The fifth area that researchers explored upon completion of this survey was that of feeling, thinking, and behavior in response to COVID-19. Nineteen different themes were ranked by 100 experts based on their positivity and negativity. The themes included items such as the following: Health Consciousness, Optimism , Cautiousness, Protection, Compliance, Composure, Information Dissemination, Worry on self/family/others, Relating to Past Pandemics, Anxiety, Government Blaming, Shock, Transmission of Virus, Fear, Sadness, Paranoia , Nihilism, Annihilation, and Indifference. Upon completion of the survey, the highest-scoring themes amongst respondents included Fear, Social Distancing, Health Consciousness, and Information Dissemination. Meanwhile, the lowest-scoring themes included Indifference and Nihilism.

Overall, COVID-19 has become a global pandemic that is continuing to move and spread across the world. In the aftermath of this pandemic, it will be interesting to compare the panic responses of different countries. The Philippines approaches this study from a more socially collectivist perspective. With that being said, it was reported that the Philippines leaned towards more individualistic tendencies in times of fear. Another area to look deeper into would include how panic responses change from the initial shock of COVID-19 to lockdown phases to re-emergence phases.

Georgina Fairbrother is a current master’s student in the Humanitarian and Disaster Leadership program at Wheaton College. Prior to her master’s degree, she received a bachelor’s degree in Global Security and Intelligence studies from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Nicomedes, C. J., & Avila, R. (2020). An Analysis on the Panic of Filipinos During COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.17355.54565

Jamie Aten , Ph.D. , is the founder and executive director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College.

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[OPINION] Are students actually learning during this pandemic?

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

“ Sir, indi ko anay mag-eskwela online kay wala ko kwarta inug pa load. Unahon namon anay amon kalan-on kay ga masakit si tatay (Sir, I can’t go to our online class because I don’t have money to buy load. I need to prioritize our food because my father is sick).”

This is just one of the situations of students in state universities as they embrace the so-called “new normal” in education. Despite efforts of the education sector to continue learning during the pandemic, the “new normal” has continued to be a scourge not only for teachers but also for students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been shaping the course of education. It has shifted from the more familiar face-to-face setup to the unfamiliar space of online learning, with teachers trying to replicate traditional classroom methods that are now unsuitable.

Despite the problem of student learning and the difficulty of their adjustment during the pandemic, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) still pushed for the opening of classes like the Department of Education (DepEd), but provided some leniency, saying it will be up to the schools to decide whether they would open in August or October.

Things are not easy when moving pedagogically from one medium to another. The sudden transition brought by the pandemic without adequate opportunities to design for a new medium becomes a struggle for educators and students.

For instance, the shift to synchronous online video-conferencing (such as Skype, Google Meet, or Zoom) creates uncertainty for teachers and students. Because they do not have enough resources to stay online, most of the students – especially in state universities – rely on free Facebook for communication. The burden of data consumption through video conferencing is costly for students who rely on free tuition.

On the teachers’ side, the migration creates a quagmire of problems despite the battery of seminars for adjustment. Still, internet connection remains the number one problem. To address this, some institutions have resorted to module-making or course packs or asynchronous learning. These, along with online video conferencing, have become the standard norm.

However, the same problem arises as module-making and course packs become a struggle because of the demands of the institution. Some institutions hastily forced teachers to produce modules for the sake of having finished products to justify expenditures on teacher salaries and to beat the deadline, given the early class opening. Modules and course packs don’t replicate the actual teaching. This band-aid solution only shows the gaps between the privileged and their underserved counterparts in education.

There is no actual learning in this urgent transition; it is for the sake of completion. The problem in this pedagogical migration is that it leaves the marginalized students with haphazard information, where they are facing complex material, financial, mental, and infrastructural challenges.

Neoliberal values: product-based orientation

The pandemic has become an avenue to forge neoliberal values in education. An academic freeze to make students and teachers feel at ease and safe has been thumbed down by education officials who declared that education must continue despite the pandemic.

This decision to continue classes by any means is, however, more a matter of economics than a mission of education – the number of unemployed will quadruple due to the number of people in private institutions who will lose their jobs at this time. This institutional gesture of pushing through with classes has turned into an oasis for people who need their jobs to live.

Neoliberal values shape and frame the mind of academicians. The pressure to work on their course packs and modules with a limited time frame for the sake of completion, in a Marxist sense, is called “alienation of labor.”

College educators were forced to submit to this kind of system because of their debt of gratitude to the institution. This can, however, also become detrimental because this framing dismisses the dialogue between teachers and their administrators, especially in airing their pleas against reopening or about other problems they encounter in making their course packs.

This kind of framing even covers students whose pleas were denied, too, and who were pressured by their teachers to connect by any means for their online classes. Of course, we know that the majority of students in state universities come from the lower-class strata of society where internet connection is a luxury rather than a necessity. This relationship of top-down decision-making is toxic and creates the impression of an oppressor-oppressed relationship.

Teachers are oppressed and denied by their admins, and in turn, those who are oppressed become oppressors to their students. This corporatization of higher education has also created a product-based orientation. Teachers present the product to the admins and students, and students must return the product that their teachers ask for – a setup more likely based on compliance.

Students’ vulnerability

Students are the most vulnerable in this situation. Before, education was seen as a gateway to a brighter future; now, education is a burden to the poor and an advantage to the affluent.

Private and state universities are still finding stop-gap solutions to provide quality education for all, but quality is heavily dependent on the level and quality of digital access. The less affluent families with limited digital devices are the ones left behind. Besides dealing with budget issues for data plans to cope with their online classes, their mental health is also strained as they cope with learning requirements in this time of crisis. These only exacerbate their learning situation.

Students enroll not because they want to learn, but because they don’t want to be left behind. They attend online classes and answer their modules and course packs, not because they want to learn but because they need to comply with these requirements to get a degree and diploma.

Similarly, teachers do their jobs for the sake of completion mandated by their superiors, even if their heart is not in it. Education in the time of this pandemic is also a pandemic itself. It is not liberating but rather restraining. It is not encouraging but rather depressing.

Education institutions want the best but they forget to become human. As Luis Montenegro said in the movie, It Takes A Man and A Woman : “ Minsan sa kagustuhan nating maging magaling, nakakalimutan nating maging mabuti (Sometimes in our desire to be excellent, we forget to be good).” – Rappler.com

Sensei M. Adorador is part of the faculty of the College of Education at Carlos Hilado Memorial State College, Negros Occidental. He is a member of the Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND). For comments and suggestions you can reach him at  [email protected] .

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Guest Essay

This Isn’t the China I Remember

By Gish Jen

Ms. Jen, an American novelist whose family hails from Shanghai, wrote from Shanghai.

In 1979 my mother pulled out a Band-Aid in a Nanjing hospital. The nurses clustered around it, amazed. “The West has everything!” they said.

We were on a family visit to China, where my Shanghai relatives were similarly wowed by our excellent teeth and ample body fat, not to mention our descriptions of American dishwashers, refrigerators and air-conditioning. And with the general awe came V.I.P. treatment. Hosts broke out bottles of expensive orange soda that they freely mixed with expensive warm beer. We could not escape drinking this any more than we could escape our government-assigned “guide,” whose job was to strictly monitor visitors like us. Relatives or not, we were foreigners.

I returned to teach English at the Shandong Mining Institute in 1981. My students were coal mining engineers preparing to study abroad, so that they might bring back safer mining techniques. I was their “foreign expert.” As such, I had not only a sit-down toilet in the apartment provided to me, but also running hot water, an unheard-of luxury. My ayi, or housekeeper, would make a fire under a vat of water on the roof and, when it was ready, turn the faucet handle in my bathtub.

After class, my students would bring stools out to the basketball court where, each facing a different direction, they would sit and study for hours on end. Loving their country and wanting to make it strong, they were grateful for Westerners like me. Foreign as we were, we were a help.

Fast forward a few decades to a booming China. In my many visits over the years — as a teacher, as a visiting artist and as a tourist — Shanghai hotel staffers had always returned my credit card to me with two hands, a bow of the head, and a smile. But with a quarter of the world’s construction cranes said to be in the city during China’s boom years, raising skyscrapers from what had been rice paddies, attitudes had changed. My credit card was returned with one hand; the receptionist barely looked up. My relatives no longer asked that I bring American goods for them, either. “China has everything,” they said then. As many proudly proclaimed, the 20th century was America’s; the 21st was China’s.

One seldom hears that triumphalist tone today. Instead, the talk is of a loss of confidence and trust in the Chinese government. People remain proud of their city, which now boasts excellent, cosmopolitan food and spotless streets. There are huge new sports centers featuring tennis and paddle-boarding, there is an artificial beach with pink sand. The city is far greener than in years past, too. Magnolia and cherry trees bloom everywhere and even the strips under the freeways have been landscaped. And thanks to the ubiquitous security cameras, Shanghai is spectacularly safe.

Yet below the surface lurks a sense of malaise. In this famously cosmopolitan city, there are weirdly few foreigners compared with before, many having left because of the stifling policies during the pandemic or because international companies have pulled out employees, or other reasons. Clothing shops are empty and many other stores have closed. The Nanjing West Road shopping district, previously a sea of humans, is strangely underpopulated.

Shanghainese are still outraged at having been locked down for two months in the spring of 2022 to stem a surge in Covid-19 cases with little time to prepare. Such were the shortages of essentials that Tylenol was for sale by the pill. And so heavy-handed were even the post-lockdown policies that residents took to the streets in protest .

But for many, the pandemic debacle only capped a series of governmental blunders starting with Premier Li Keqiang urging young people to open their own businesses in 2014. This and other missteps cost wave after wave of people their life savings, and many Chinese now blame government ineptitude and erraticism for bringing the economy to a standstill. As a Shanghainese friend put it, the government has turned China around and around until, like spinning cars, people’s engines have stalled and their wheels have locked up.

The result has been so steep and unrelenting a fall in real estate prices that elderly people, like my friend’s parents, can’t sell their apartments to pay for nursing or assisted living. And they are hardly the only ones affected by the downturn. Doctors find themselves squeezed — many patients don’t have money for operations — while businesspeople sit on their hands, unwilling to make investments in so unpredictable an environment. Many college graduates, faced with a grim job market, are essentially dropping out, or “lying flat,” as it’s called in China. Not even schoolchildren, it seems, have been spared the general despondency. As one teacher I spoke to observed, when the society is sick, the children pay the price. Too many parents know a child who has had to leave school because of depression.

Of course, for all of this the West is scapegoated — having opposed, people say, China’s rise — as is China’s other favorite enemy, Japan, whose brutal 1930s invasion and ensuing occupation of China still rankles. (One sequence of a CGI video shown in my recent Shanghai spin class featured giant images of the coronavirus studded with Japanese temples.)

Whoever is to blame, emigration is on the rise . According to U.N. figures, more than 310,000 Chinese left the country in each of the past two years, a 62 percent increase from the earlier average of around 191,000 per year over the decade through 2019. Those in Shanghai with the means to do so talk endlessly about “running away,” even to officially reviled countries like the United States .

This is not always an answer. One friend of mine has come back to China to stay, having spent six years attending graduate school in Boston, saying she missed the warmth of Chinese family life. And no one has illusions about the difficulty of getting established in another country. People in China speak of a whole new class of emigrants, women who have left high-powered careers to accompany their children to the United States early enough for them to assimilate — ideally, in middle or high school. As for the fruits of their sacrifice, it’s too early to say. Can the children really become Westerners? Will they — like me decades earlier — become the foreigners?

Things in China could change. Those “lying flat” are not asleep. They are watching and could someday rise up. But in the meantime, people in Shanghai are simply, as they put it, “xin lei ” : Their hearts are tired.

Gish Jen is an American novelist and the author of “Thank You, Mr. Nixon.” She is currently teaching at N.Y.U. Shanghai.

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