Cebu has led the way in moving on and moving forward from Covid-19 long before the World Health Organization’s (WHO) recent proclamation that the virus no longer represents a “global health emergency.”
This was what Gov. Gwen Garcia told reporters during an interview at the SM Seaside on Saturday, May 6.
The governor was reacting to the WHO statement issued a day earlier that said “COVID-19 is now an established and ongoing health issue which no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern.”
“To people who continue to want to extend it [Covid-19], I don’t know, for their own selfish reasons perhaps, or for their own agenda. I hope they start listening to the World Health Organization. Siyaro naman sad,” the governor told the media.
“Kami, we declared that even before well in advance of WHO, because we were the ones — the WHO has not seen the situation on the ground — I am the one, kami, leaders who were chosen by the Cebuanos tasked to look after their welfare — I saw the situation right on the ground,” she she said.
Gov. Garcia was the lone voice of reason, sanity, normalcy, and hope during Covid’s irrational, insane, abnormal, and bleak time.
After studying the figures, she realized that more Cebuanos were suffering from economic collapse rather than from the curse of the virus itself.
And so, among many others, she reopened Cebu to tourism in as early as August 2020 during the height of lockdowns; opposed the no-backriding policy even for family members; junked RT-PCR tests for travellers coming to Cebu; shortened quarantine days for OFWs and returning Filipinos; as well as made face masks optional in open and well-ventilated spaces.
While her policies spurred economic activities in Cebu and made the Cebuanos’ lives easier, these same policies won for her the ire of some officials at the IATF, DOH, and DILG, enough fuel to land her and her “hard-headedness” in local and national news outlets on a regular basis.
For her, however, it was a small price to pay if by her “hard-headedness”, she was able to defend Cebu’s economy and start a more objective discussion on Covid’s actual situation on the ground.
“That is why Cebu was always leading the way in coming up with policies that took into consideration the balancing of lives and livelihoods. We led the way. There were those who objected, but now they are saying the same thing,” the governor said, glad that she has been vindicated at last by no less than the WHO itself.
WHO’s recent statement presents a major step towards downgrading Covid’s pandemic status three years after it took the whole world by storm. | Carlo Lorenciana