Tutors Claim In Survey: Gov’t Support During 1st Week Of Lockdown “Dismal”

March 28, 2020 Community Billboard

BAGUIO CITY (March 24, 2020) – Teachers around the country believed government’s services on the ground during the first week of the ECQ was dismal.
A survey launched by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers revealed fifty-eight per cent of those surveyed noted the absence of health services at the community level, with 22% saying they had no access to a barangay health center at the moment; while 79.5% said that zero (64.3%) to insufficient (15.2%) economic services were provided to workers whose livelihoods were affected by the sudden and strict lockdown.
ACT surveyed a total of 401 teacher-respondents from 57 provinces and cities or municipalities in 16 of 17 regions.In terms of the food rationing promise, 95.4% of participants answered scarce (10.4%) to none (85%), ACT found out.
“The varying levels of community quarantine imposed all over the country is proving to be an ill-prepared measure with dire consequences to the Filipino people, especially the already vulnerable sectors,” ACT Secretary General Raymond Basilio said.
Basilio called on top officials who signed off on the drastic lockdown, then transferred the responsibility of its implementation to local government units (LGUs) whose means, he said, were also lacking.
The survey also showed that 48.4% of the teachers received no aid from the government, while 46.8% of those who did receive support noted that it came from the LGU and only 8.2% felt the assistance of the national government.
Basilio continued, “by now, the lockdown has been imposed in nearly the entire archipelago. Yet the national government still has not come up with a comprehensive plan. Not to mention that large chunks of budgetary allocations are given to national agencies and their respective programs/projects.
Duterte and other top officials, including the Congress, have the power to maximize this without the need for ‘emergency powers’, why are being forced to scrimp on what little resources our LGUs have?”
ACT also became worried that forty-nine per cent indicated an increase in the prices of essential goods, while 42.8% noted shortages of supplies in markets and stores.
“Difficult days are expected still to come, especially with 72% of teachers saying their stock will only last from 1 to 2 weeks, which falls short of the declared end of the lockdown, suppose it does not extend further. If we don’t die of COVID-19 infection, we might die of hunger,” Basilio cried.
Just as their belts continue to tighten, ACT remarked that the same is observed of the restrictions imposed by the community quarantine. The survey showed that 76.5% of participants noted stricter measures to limit people’s movement, and information provided by the government focused largely on lockdown provisions (56.8%) than on health or medical matters (25.4%).
Basilio went on to condemn how “these figures speak of how the government is failing us on all fronts in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. The measures it imposed does not follow WHO’s recommended and tested ways of curbing further spread of the virus, which makes the government’s response to the pandemic nothing but an added burden to already suffering teachers and other vulnerable sectors.”

Artemio A. Dumlao/ABN