THE Espino administration has achieved for Pangasinan what the usual pessimists in our midst initially thought were difficult to accomplish in managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the past two years, both our government and our people fought hard and well to survive the onslaught of the corona virus, a situation that had no precedence in our generation. We were blindsided by a virus for which no vaccine was readily available but throughout, the situation offered significant lessons for our provincial, city and town governments.

The detection of the Omicron variant, preceded by the Delta variant, should no longer cause panic in our midst. Our people and government have gone this far to know how to best protect ourselves as a people and as a community. We’ve learned that with or without vaccines, we need face masks and face shields (if need be), to constantly wash our hands and to avoid crowded indoor areas.

These five lessons (including vaccines) should keep us out of trouble regardless of how many more covid variants may surface in the months and years ahead. In fact, these are our basic safeguards to keep our economy robust and dynamic.

We are forever grateful to our health frontlliners who have painstakingly learned to proceed with treatment protocol routinely while government health officials already know which buttons to push to activate health and treatment facilities for emergency use.

We only pray that these hard earned lessons will never leave us because the pandemic is far from over. What should be over and done with is our panic mode as we move on without need for cluster quarantine or worse, hard lockdowns.

Timeless

SO there.  President Duterte and Sen. Bong Go have backed out.  Mr. Duterte dumping his senatorial bid and Go going bust in his Palace dream were both no big deal, actually.  Before withdrawing, the President has repeatedly said he’d be retiring from politics after his tenure in June 2022.  Now 76, Mr. Duterte said it’s time to rest when his reign is over. Not once, too, did Go say he is not ready for the presidency while citing his family’s objection to his Malacanang try as a major factor in his decision to withdraw.  But while Mr. Duterte will quit politics next year, not Go.  Go will stay on as a senator until 2025. Almost inseparable for nearly 30 years now, it’d be interesting to watch the two go their separate ways after the May 2022 elections.  But by all means, their friendship, seemingly, is etched in granite. It’s a partnership as timeless as a horse-and-carriage tandem.

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