January 2020 started off with a geopolitical bang—literally. On January 3, the United States killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq. This led to a valid hypothesis that there would be an immediate escalation and counter-escalation that would lead to wider armed conflict in the Middle East.
On the afternoon of January 12, Taal Volcano erupted, spewing ash over the metropolis and devastating wide portions of Batangas province, displacing hundreds of thousands. The potential for a major eruption that could kill many people was on everyone’s mind.
As of January 26, a virus that did not match any other known viruses that originated from Wuhan City, Hubei province of China, has infected more than 1,200 people and killed 41. With the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) now showing confirmed cases from Singapore to France, concerns of a global pandemic are justified, if premature.
As we end January 2020, we may look back and see this month as one for the record books in terms of drama and significance.
When something is broken, we first need to react by doing something to fix the immediate problem to stop the situation from getting worse. But then a more permanent solution must be found, otherwise, we face a repeat of the bad situation.
The Philippine government organized its resources to repatriate our overseas workers from Iraq after the Soleimani killing. Yet, the situation in that part of the region has been volatile and dangerous for a long time. In September 2018, Filipinos were forbidden from working in Iraq. But, as usual, there were exceptions for “employees of companies holding Iraqi government contracts, overseas Filipino workers [OFWs] working for the governments of member-states of the International Coalition, the US, the United Nations, and other international organizations and nongovernment organizations.”
The “deployment ban” to Iraq proved to be ineffective and the permanent solution is now a total deployment ban. In another Middle East situation, since 2018, two (now three) OFWs in Kuwait were murdered. High-level talks between the two nations to protect the 240,000 Filipinos who hold jobs there—more than half being female domestic workers—became the immediate response to the deaths of Joanna Demafelis and Constancia Lago Dayag. With the death of Jeanelyn Villavende, the response was a total ban of all newly hired workers to Kuwait.
As the Alert Level over Taal Volcano is down, it may soon be business as usual. It should not be. Taal will eventually have a major eruption. It is only a matter of time. After the 1911 eruption there was talk of a 14-kilometer exclusion zone. Now billions of pesos have been spent in the Tagaytay area. A strong 1990 earthquake devastated Baguio City, and there will be another. But since then it has been business as usual on steroids.
China and the world were supposed to have learned from the 2002 to 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak. Here we are once again actually depending on the Chinese government to contain the disease. Fortunately, our Department of Health (and Bureau of Quarantine) reacted quickly, and once again their response may save the Philippines. Further, the Bureau of Immigration has started denying applications for visa-upon-arrival by tour groups from Wuhan City, China.
However, it is imperative to realize that for 21st-century problems, short-term fixes are not long-term solutions.