Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet: “To be or not to be, that is the question. Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer, The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against the sea of troubles, And by opposing, end them.”
President Duterte has a similar dilemma, an extremely difficult and crucial decision point of lifting the enhanced community lockdown or extending it. And we just do not know how shall he untie this Gorgian knot. It is like choosing between Scylla and Charybdis, or being torn between the devil and the deep blue sea. This is the gargantuan task of a leader, be it President Duterte or President Trump. Each of the two options carry some far-reaching, and if you will, grave consequences of unknown scopes and complexities. It is not a joke to be a president of 110 million people with varying demands and expectations.
Should the president decide to lift the national ECQ, there is a clear and present danger of exacerbating the rates of contamination. To lift the lockdowns at a time when we have not reached a leveling of the scope of infection may thereby cause a sudden spike, and thus put at risk the lives of thousands. Taking that option not only puts at risk the health of millions. It also would not sit well with the WHO prescriptions for a global strategic imperative aimed at halting the spread of this deadly virus. Not to mention the expert advice of the genuine medical scientists, who specialize on infectious diseases as well as famous world class epidemiologists.
On the other hand, if the president chooses to extend the lockdown, that would be going against the strong recommendations of economists and financial experts who have expressed utmost concerns at the billions of losses that the economy has suffered owing to the total halt of industry, trade and the hitherto unrestricted flow of the supply chain. Millions among our working class people are on the verge of losing their jobs, as their employers, mostly small-scale and medium scale industries are poised to declare bankruptcies and closures, others to undertake massive retrenchments and redundancies.
It is not easy to make this decision. The choice is between two evils. The president is going to be advised by both the health authorities and the economic experts. But out there in the cities, provinces and towns, there are thousands of detractors, both the conscientious and issue-based dissenters and also those who are congenital and incurable non-conformists, between the deeply philosophical and those who are plain stupid morons and imbeciles. There those who, from the very beginning, are already prejudiced against President Duterte, and who bashed him left and right. There are those who use the social media to attack our leader with vitriolic and malicious accusations.
But at the end of the day, it is only President Digong who shall bite the bullet and make the crucial judgment. And as Shakespeare would go on in Hamlet: “Thus conscience makes cowards of us all, For those who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The insolence of office and the spurns, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of pains after death.”
We have a leader who is not afraid to be hated, despised or condemned. Scorned or applauded, he will thus decide.