FORMER DEFENSE Chief Norberto Gonzales said the Covid-19 response of the national leadership remains sorely inept, adding, the pandemic constitutes the biggest threat to the country’s national security.
“It is time to take the more correct perspective that this is a matter of national security which is at stake here,” he said, adding, “the entire country witnessed how the pandemic cost us our security in all these aspects. The cost in lives alone cannot even be quantified. With the Omicron variant’s arrival in the Philippines, the number of new cases jumped to record highs.”
Gonzales, who also served as National Security Adviser, said the country let its guard down, which in part allowed the bearers of this more transmissible virus to sneak in and infect others. “Unfortunately, corruption played a role in how some personalities were able to skip the mandatory quarantine, enabling them to party while transmitting the virus to the many who came in contact with them,” he said.
He also cited the effects of the health crisis in the country. “One after the other, the results of the contagion manifested - medicines are in short supply in drugstores; the food supply stands in peril; alert levels imposed renew the people’s anxiety, and limitations on travel impact not only people but farm produce and other goods that must be transported. Jobs must revert to WFH (work from home) again; businesses will likely contract. As the cases of Covid spiral up, the health care system is in danger again of being overwhelmed,” he said. (Richard Ebona)
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