Mahirap Maging Mahirap: Situation of unprivileged people in ECQ

Yna Del Rosario

From the rising numbers being infected from the Coronavirus, the government is taking some precautions to decrease the number of people being infected from such a disease that eventually has already claimed thousands of lives. President Duterte imposed an Enhanced Community Quarantine in Luzon on March 17, 2020 which includes Metro Manila and it can be either shortened or extended but due to the fact that the virus is still spreading the ECQ was extended until May 15, 2020.

The extension of the Enhanced Community Quarantine is needed in order to have some defense while Coronavirus is still present. With this, certain jobs are cancelled, some may take it as a break to spend time with their loved ones while others are worried about how they are going to get by without having an income to provide for their needs. According to President Duterte, there is a P200 billion emergency fund to aid the need of front liners, medical improvements, and “recovery packages” for low-income earners. Having assistance from the government, especially those who are not earning much to have the basic needs can be helpful to them.

Despite the help of the government, the first few weeks of the quarantine were very hard for the unprivileged since they only have so little to get by especially to those who are in a no work no pay situation which makes it harder for them since we are lacking in mass transportation. Duterte states that the emergency assistance would be given to those who are under no work, no pay circumstances and informal settlers.

In the end, people who don't have much will always be at the very bottom when problems like this rise. Wealthy people might take this as a chance to do the things that they have been holding off for a while but the thing that most of us doesn’t realize is that there are people who live in poverty who are trying to scrape off from the remains of their allowance just to feed their own family. At this time, it is best to let our fellow Filipinos know that we are trying our best to make them feel that they are not alone in a crisis like this.