The Department of Finance (DOF) says the 2021 GDP forecast will need reassessment and might be downgraded in light of more infectious COVID-19 variants that require more business restrictions like lockdowns. The DOF, National Economic and Development Authority, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and Department of Budget and Management are right in saying that we will have more difficult times with lockdowns. They, however, also have the same refrain — that we can see the economy recover by speeding up the vaccination and health programs so that quarantines can be removed sooner.
What we see is that the government machinery is not working in sync. The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) has become President Duterte’s weekly monologue topic. My out-of-the-box suggestion is to abolish the IATF. To get the country out of the COVID-19 crisis sooner, Congress should consider passing an emergency measure to create a COVID-19 Emergency Receivership Council composed of the country’s economic managers, with Mr. Duterte and former Presidents as advisers.
This may look silly and unacceptable to Mr. Duterte, but that is the only solution out of the stalemate. Most of our endeavors in battling COVID-19 have been marked by a glaring lack of planning, leading, organizing, and controlling—the basic functions of management. Managing a business in crisis is what the country needs now. Otherwise, our complaining about what the government is not doing will be endless.
MARVEL K. TAN
marvelktan@yahoo.com