Punchline
Technology will win fight vs. COVID-19
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
It’s about time our national IATF start considering using free apps to augment contact-tracing efforts to beat the COVID-19 contagion. The apps have been there since May but nobody gave it a thought then!
Using technology to combat a pandemic is just about the most practical thing nowadays. It’s just as functional as making everyone wear face masks. It’s how they do it in Singapore today.
From Bitstop’s Wilson Chua, Singapore do not allow anyone entry in workplaces, schools, hospitals, condominium residences, hair salons, supermarkets, public wet markets, malls, hotels, banks, etc. if one does not register one’s installed app.
It’s definitely more convenient than filling up contact-tracing forms when you enter stores and restaurants, more accurate information. It quickly identifies one’s presence in the area when and where a recently identified COVID case was.
If the national IATF dilly-dallies on this issue, the provincial government should go ahead and adopt the technology. It can (should) consult the Metro Dagupan ICT community. If the provincial government adopts it, while level of infection is still low, it will improve effectiveness of contact-tracing in the long run, not only for COVID but for other viruses in the future.
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MOURNING ARCHBISHOP OVC’S PASSING. I join thousands of others who deeply mourn the passing of our former Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz. I’ve never met a bishop like him, a down to earth, spiritual leader, frank and a critical thinker yet open-minded.
He walked and talked with everyone like he was your old friend for years. No pretenses. No air of hierarchical presence as a top church official. Each time one needed to see and talk to him, the only thing one needed to know was – did he have a visitor? If he didn’t have any, he expected you to simply appear before him, no appointments needed. But one should know when to take leave because one would not be looked upon by the next visitor as a killjoy for monopolizing the Archbishop OVC’s time.
Personally, on reading about him for the first time from the news report filed by our Eva Visperas I knew I finally found an active partner in The PUNCH’s campaign vs jueteng in Pangasinan, a campaign I’ve long started here in 1969. I had arranged protest rallies and demonstrations contra jueteng in the past, with no civic or religious leader in tow. Perhaps it was because my fight was about the influence and corruption and control that jueteng lords had over public and police officials.
Talking to Archbishop OVC for the first time, I began to appreciate his view more than corruption per se, it’s the cause of hardships and exploitation suffered by the poor. I was talking about governance, he was talking about the exploitation of jueteng lords of the poor, literally robbing the poor of the very little they have in life, by conning them to bet on jueteng everyday while the government and law enforcers turn a blind eye.
I realized we were after the same target for different reasons. His was profound and focused on Jesus’ teachings.
When he organized a protest march and rally at the city plaza, I gamely walked with him around the city streets and he was truly in his element. He was walking snappily, with a smile on his face. I understood what he felt – happy to see that his message was being heard and seen.
With him then was Fr. Oliver Mendoza, his able lieutenant, dutifully managing the details of the movement, “Krusada ng Bayan Laban sa Jueteng”, including the conduct of the marches and rallies. (It was only much later that I realized the word ‘Krusada’ was to be his legacy: “Cruz” “cross” and his advocacy in this single word).
He was regularly writing a blog, expressing his thoughts, not really caring if his articles were read or not. But I did. He never asked me or anyone to help spread his blog. It was I who asked his permission to publish his articles… he laughed at it and warned me about losing PUNCH readership. I surely didn’t have second thoughts about featuring his regular blog in every issue of the Sunday PUNCH to make sure more would be reading his thoughts. I felt gratified when other local newspapers followed suit and started publishing his blogs as well. He surely developed a following without any effort.
One other person who was awed by his stature and advocacy was Senator Ping Lacson. Since I knew both, and at the senator’s insistence, I arranged their meeting for the first time at the CBCP building in Intramuros in Manila. Since then, and unknown to many, they’ve become like brothers-in-arms linked by their personal commitment and advocacy to stop jueteng, corruption and exploitation of the poor. Sen. Ping made sure Archbishop OVC was invited as a resource person when the senate launched a series of hearing on the proliferation of illegal gambling in the country. He was not disappointed. The archbishop gave the jueteng lords hell in that chamber.
Archbishop OVC was a man for others. A fool to one. I miss him terribly.
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OLD CATHEDRAL RESTORATION. To my fellow parishioners, please don’t forget to say a prayer for Archbishop OVC each time you enter and admire how the restoration and renovation inside the cathedral was made. He personally directed its restoration for us.
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