By Alec Go
Malacaῆang cited on Friday (July) 9 several improvements in the country’s response against disasters, security threats, and COVID-19 amid the country’s latest ranking on safety in an international magazine.
Recently, Global Finance magazine listed the Philippines as the least safe among 134 countries. The magazine factored in war and peace, personal security, natural disaster risk factors, and COVID-19 in its scoring.
“While it is given that the Philippines is prone to natural hazards owing to its geographical location in the Pacific rim as well as due to climate change, our disaster management system continues to improve,’ Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said.
Roque said there was a “significant decline” in crime rate since the beginning of the community quarantines in March 2020. The Philippine National Police (PNP) already disputed on July 8 the magazine’s report, saying that the report does not match PNP’s data on crime statistics.
The PNP said crime volume declined by half, with theft and robbery having “more than 60% reduction.”
PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar said effects of natural disasters and attacks committed by rebels are beyond government control, which drives security forces to aggressively implement “whole-of-government approach against local terror groups that are mostly based on non-military solutions.”
“Ang peace and order ay isa lamang sa mga factors dahil kasama din sa mga naging basehan ay ang natural disasters at mismong epekto ng COVID-19 sa ating bansa,” Eleazar said.
COVID-19
In terms of COVID-19 response, Malacaῆang noted that 86% of Filipinos are satisfied with the current administration’s response, based on a December 2020 Pulse Asia survey.
“In addition, we are on track in achieving our target of population protection in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces by November this year, as long as the supply of vaccines remains stable,” Roque said.
“We are therefore optimistic that things would be better with more and more people getting vaccinated, coupled with our strict implementation of the Prevention-Detection-Isolation-Treatment-and Reintegration (PDITR) Strategy,” he added.
The Philippines has already administered 12,489,777 COVID-19 vaccine doses as of July 7. At least three million Filipinos have also been fully vaccinated. – rir
