BY MATÉ ESPINA
AS TYPHOON “Ulysses” battered Luzon, reports of earthquakes rocked Negros Island last Thursday.
Dumaguete reporter, Judy Flores posted feeling an earthquake, followed by confirmation from the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) that indeed, a 3.9 magnitude earthquake was recorded in Siaton, Negros Oriental.
In Negros Occidental on the other hand, eight volcanic earthquakes were recorded in a span of 24 hours in Kanlaon Volcano with Phivolcs reminding the public to remain vigilant under “abnormal” conditions of the volcano.
The ban to trek is still up within the four-kilometer radius Permanent Danger Zone as 42 tons of sulfur dioxide were measured at the volcano just last week.
We have had a series of earthquakes this year in the entire island and there is fear that the active volcano may erupt or a massive jolt may come anytime soon.
Add to that the havoc brought about by typhoons “Quinta”, “Rolly” and “Ulysses” and the pandemic just makes you wish time will turn back before 2020 or speed up to 2021 and have our lives back to normal.
The successive typhoons have been overwhelming. Although we ought to be thankful that there are fewer casualties despite the typhoons’ strength, they caused far more damage than imagined. Footages of “Ulysses’” aftermath were just heart breaking.
Survival was their goal and the danger of COVID-19 was forgotten as residents and rescuers helped each other to safety.
Family members living in Metro Manila didn’t sleep a wink Wednesday night as the howling of winds scared them. One of my niece reported hearing windows breaking in their neighbourhood while my sisters were monitoring water levels as three of them, including my eldest son, live in Quezon City.
Back here at home, we have been spared by the typhoons but our lives have not normalized despite a sharp decrease in COVID cases. Last week, we’ve been averaging in low double digits and had two-days of zero cases. However, just recently, a one-year old baby boy became Bacolod’s youngest COVID-19 fatality.
According the City Administrator Em Ang, the baby had diarrhea for several days but when brought to the hospital, it was too late already and he died of dehydration and septic shock. He was tested for the coronavirus because diarrhea was among the symptoms identified and two days post his death, test showed the baby was positive of the virus.
Contact tracing of the family after the baby’s death showed that his father, grandfather and uncle were all positive and have been transferred to a quarantine facility while the rest of the household were placed on lockdown.
Negros Oriental, although they have very few cases also had a drastic rise recently with 61 new cases in a day out of a total of 504 cases. Their total number though is far lower than Negros Occidental which breached the 5,000 mark already.
In Bacolod meanwhile, the city government is facing a headache with the seeming complacency of residents to follow minimum health protocols.
Although the president has declared Bacolod to remain on GCQ till the end of November, city officials lobbied the national IATF to review their status on the 15th and declare us under MGCQ.
However, there have been several videos and reports circulating that people have been partying, going to beach resorts, and celebrating birthdays, without care for health protocols.
Monitoring teams have been deployed to padlock beach resorts which under GCQ, are not yet allowed to open while another city water sports facility was also locked down following a random visit from the city team that revealed a children’s party was ongoing.
Under GCQ, minors aged 15 and below are not supposed to roam around yet many who were in that resort were mostly small children attending the party. Guests were sent home and the city government are now studying what actions to take against the establishment for operating without a permit.
Bacolod is also hosting the VIVA Excon, an event that gathers artists in the Visayas every two years. Just as it opened, organizers of the event where called to explain to city officials the video that has been circulating about an open-air party that occurred at the Art District, the home of VIVA, just days before it opened.
Young people were seen in that video drinking and dancing to a live band, and most, if not all, had no masks on. These incidents prompted the city council to amend their local ordinance which originally only penalizes individual violators of the health protocol, to this time, include the establishments where these protocols are not strictly implemented.
Vice Mayor El Cid Familiaran said that in as much as we want to be downgraded to MGCQ, if the national IATF sees the lack of discipline which can cause another round of spike in COVID cases, we may not be able to get our downgrade.
At the end of the day, government can only do so much. If people will not cooperate and act like they are invincible towards this virus, then it will not be surprising if our efforts to regain some normalcy will never be achieved./PN
