I belong to one of the “lucky” families because we are not starving yet. How many million families are having problems with their daily subsistence because of the Lockdown? The Luzon population was 63 million in 2015 (Wikipedia[2]); if you have an average of 6 members per family, that’s 10.5 million families – if you halve that, the number who belongs to the cashless society is least 5 million families! Did those who favored the Luzon Lockdown consider that? The Lockdown is further impoverishing the impoverished!
So I’m complaining for the cashless society created by the Luzon Lockdown.
Given that, today I learned of an “ally,” the Asian Development Bank, ADB, which has headquarters in Mandaluyong City in Metro Manila, 6 km from Malacañang Palace, the power of morefunds vs the power of more politics.
What does ADB want? A “prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific[3].” As far as this amateur economist is concerned, those countries who have declared lockdowns are prosperous andinclusive but neither resilient nor sustainable. That is why ADB has come out with an urgent press release:
ADB Warns PH Against Prolonged Lockdown[4]
That news has been brought to us by Ben O De Vera (04 April 2020, Inquirer.net).
Anyway, the Lockdown is not resolving the problem of the coronavirus – otherwise, everyone on Facebook will tell us to “Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for your deliverance is at hand!”
Says Mr De Vera:
If the Philippines can contain its local COVID-19 outbreak by midyear, the economy will still grow (but) by a slower 2 percent in 2020, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Friday. ¶ (The ADB) warned that economic recovery might lag if (the economy’s) engines – the supply chain, businesses and their workforce – could not be jumpstarted as soon as possible… A less-desirable U-shape recovery is possible if disrupted supply chains are not restored quickly, workers are not rehired immediately or business are slow to restart operations.
Stated as positives, the ADB is saying that the supply chain, businesses should be jumpstarted and their workforce rehired as soon as possible. Otherwise, PH will experience a “less-desirable” economic recovery.
I don’t want that “less-desirable” recovery – I insist, I want beyond full recovery.
Not only because I’m cashless, but also because the Lockdown has not shown that it is efficacious against the spread of Covid-19 – as the experiences of countries in the world show. We will never conquer Covid-19 because we are only trying to slow down its spread, not really looking for a cure. Or a prevention.
What if that cure happens to be also the one that prevents the attack of the virus in the first place? I am thinking of vitamin C.
Meanwhile, I belong to the Cashless Society!@517
[1] https://bethkobliner.com/personal_finance/cashless-business-cash/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzon
[3] https://www.adb.org/who-we-are/about
[4] https://business.inquirer.net/294136/adb-warns-ph-against-prolonged-lockdown
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