THE government is closely watching developments on two fronts in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. One is the number of infections and deaths, the direct impact of the coronavirus on the people. The other is the economic impact of the pandemic – the big losses in national development and on the people’s livelihood.
In the first area, the Department of Health last Sunday reported 3,190 new cases since its last report two months ago, for a new total of 322,497 cases nationwide. The good news is that there were 18,065 newly recorded recoveries.
Metro Manila accounted for 37 percent of the new cases; Calabarzon (Region 4-A) had 21 percent; and Central Luzon (Region 3) had 11 percent – more than two thirds of the national total. This should explain to Metro Manilans why their region remains under General Community Quarantine (GCQ) lockdown. There were 100 new deaths – 57 in September and 16 so far in October – to raise the national death total to 5,776.
Evidently, there are still many people exposing themselves to infection, especially in Metro Manila, Calabarzon, and Central Luzon, by ignoring the basic protocols of wearing face masks, maintaining the proper distance from other persons, and frequent washing of hands.
Even as the infections and deaths continue, the country’s economic planners have drawn up plans for the country’s economic recovery from the depths to which it has fallen since the lockdowns began in March.
The COVID-19 crisis has already plunged the country into recession with the closure of nearly all business enterprises as people were told to stay home. But the Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC) has drawn up several short-term strategies to meet the problem, including acceleration of government spending, particularly under the Bayanihan 2 Act in the rest of this year, and the Build, Build, Build program which is constructing roads and bridges, employing thousands, and stimulating economic activity.
The DBCC acknowledges that the country faces such difficulties as the ongoing disruptions in business activity and in people’s livelihood and spending, the fall in the remittances of Overseas Filipino Workers and in Foreign Direct Investments, and world economic developments such as the slowdown in world trade.
Still, considering all these factors both positive and negative, the DBCC expects the national economy to start recovering in 2021. The national economy is expected to contract further this year, 2020, by 5.5 percent, but it should rebound with the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) up by 6.5 percent in 2021 and 7.5 percent in 2022.
We welcome this highly positive outlook, arising from the projects that the government is now undertaking and the plans that it is preparing for the coming year and the next. We especially welcome the expected benefits that will surely reach down to our people who have suffered so much in this pandemic but can look forward to much better times in the next two years.
