Bad luck for people of Negros Oriental

The memo/advisory about flights Dumaguete-Manila is posted under GCQ Adjustment-No pass required, Davyl is the poster

 

My HONEST opinion is that this virus is out to kill... OLD people like you, or anyone with preexisting conditions that weaken the immune system. You were 20 years old in the 1959 pandemic, 30 yo during the 1969 pandemic and I strongly guess you are not (or were not) traumatised by it. Sorry to be blunt, please be safe.

But billions of young and healthy people just discovered their lives are not very different than sheep in the hands of "expert" committees.

I am originally from Madrid, Spain, one of the hot spots of this virus and all my friends and family are out there dining out with logical (and some stupid) restrictions, kids and lolos can go out etc.

Yesterday I felt the earthquake and remembered that we live in a volcano island very close to a fault line with devastating typhoons or tropical depressions every few years (my house in Batinguel inundated in 2011 is a very real reminder). I thought this trade off was acceptable: to have a little extra freedom in our daily lives, like driving motorbikes without helmet, etc. How wrong I was... it was just lack of enforcement budget, now you can get fined for driving with slippers!

And today writing this during a brown out, without the possibility to go to the sea / pool / Robinsons with the family...

 

Letting in flights is really the last thing they should think of. It would be more reasonable to resume passenger ferries to siquijor at this time, than allowing flights to/from the place where by far the majority of cases in this country is concentrated.

Much better to leave the island locked up as a whole a bit longer, and instead give people that are here back some more of their freedom to move around, dine out and visit resorts.

 

It was also reported on CNN Philippines
https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/5/30/flights-resume-june.html

 

Any system that is limited to a few families for the recruitment of political personnel will sooner or later end up with a lack of personnel that's actually qualified for these jobs.

 

But looking at the system in a developed country, UK in this case: The government is formed by the political party which wins most constituencies. In General Elections we vote usually for the political party, although the rating for the leader of that party is taken into account (that has not prevented having some totally useless Prime Ministers). The candidate has to be selected to fight that constituency. The selection is made by a group of people who often take very strong note of the family connections (I have known useless MPs who were selected because their father is already an MP), education (say 'Eton' and you're in) and other factors not related to intelligence (Eton School is about having money, not brains). Some constituencies vote in a certain political party forever - so get selected for one of those 'safe seats' and you will definitely win.

So we end up with a Parliament consisting of many MPs who are not of the highest quality - but had certain 'factors' going for them. These are the pool from which heads of departments are selected - so some very important departments are headed by idiots. It is very rare indeed that any head of a department has any qualifications related to his department - so the Education Minister was never a teacher, the Head of Defence never served in the armed forces, the Head of Police was never a policeman, the Head of Health has no experience in healthcare. Consequently, many very bad decisions are made. This can be seen in the current virus crisis where, for example, people have been entering the country during the pandemic without any testing or quarantine - they decided eventually that his seemed a 'mistake' and so announced it would start 3 weeks later, then changed it to 6 weeks later! In the Philippines they shut own the borders very quickly.

So is there much difference between countries in respect of those who get in to government by family name or money? It looks more obvious here than in the UK, but for a very long time I have held the opinion that the UK is a very corrupt country but better at hiding it.

 

The frequency of flights matter very little - but allowing transport of any people from infected areas to (generally) uninfected areas is the likeliest way of bringing total lockdown back again soon.

Not my country, not my decision, so I am not bothered - but I will be continuing my own protective measures for a very long time to come.