‘La Peste’
May 3rd, 2003
During the all-too brief period (was it two weeks?) when the Philippines could still claim to be free of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the government made it a point to invite the tourists who were abandoning Hong Kong, China and Singapore by the tens of thousands to come to this country.
Tourism Secretary Richard Gordon did not conceal his delight that now the tourists—those still willing to take the three-quarter empty flights from home, anyway—had no choice but to come to the Philippines. In a display that could only have been interpreted as an attempt to profit from the misfortune of others, Gordon invited everyone to come to the Philippines because “it’s SARS-free.”
That might very well have been the country’s only attraction—that here one couldn’t contract SARS and die—because it doesn’t have much else except churches. Unlike Bangkok (which for the variety of Thai food alone is worth a visit), Metro Manila is not garbage-free. Unlike Bangkok hotels, Metro Manila’s own charge outlandish prices for the privilege to be in the center of a traffic- and smog-choked metropolis teeming with dishonest taxi drivers, hold-up men and con artists. Unlike Cambodia the Philippines doesn’t have an Angkor Wat, or India’s Taj Mahal, monuments, temples and tombs—at least not on the same regal and ancient scale.
The Philippines does have Boracay. But that island is turning into a province of Australia, judging by the number of Aussies who own pubs, resorts and hotels there. Boracay is nice, if you don’t look at the concrete monstrosities some enterprising locals have built right up to the beaches. But the whole of Southeast Asia—Bali, for example—offers pretty much what Boracay offers, plus a dose of local culture too, of which Boracay, also known for its bikini contests as for its sand and sea, has none to speak of.
Every tourism secretary the Philippines has ever had has tried to lure tourists by claiming that the country has something others can’t offer. In the ’60s the Philippines could at least boast of certain amenities like good hotels and clean streets, a working telephone system, only occasional floods, honest taxi drivers and a thriving cultural life of which art galleries, the latest films from France and Sweden, book stores, and visits by the Bolshoi Ballet were part of the daily scene.
The country’s neighbors have since caught up with and overtaken the Philippines, however, and not only in terms of telephones per capita. For example, Singapore, once regarded as a cultural backwater, has successfully cultivated, thanks to its government, a reputation as a center of culture in the Asean region.
The outbreak of SARS thus gave Philippine tourism officials the first opportunity ever to capitalize on something the country didn’t have, which was SARS—but not for long. Eventually—last week, to be exact, and as almost everyone else except the government suspected would happen—SARS did reach the country, with two confirmed deaths from it, and at least four other cases, with several more suspected.
If any official of the Arroyo administration ever thought that the country would be SARS-free forever or even for long, they would have been mistaken. The disease is transmitted across borders by travelers who carry the virus with them. Of travelers from SARS-afflicted countries, thanks to the country’s labor export policy as well as the economic need of millions of its citizens, the country has plenty.
With some 7 million Filipinos overseas either as immigrants or workers, a substantial number of the latter based in China, Singapore, Hong Kong as well as Canada (where the largest SARS outbreak outside of Asia has happened), SARS cases within Philippine territory were inevitable.
What is not only strange but also irresponsible is that the government, although it did name a SARS crisis manager in the person of the secretary of health, did not seem to have seriously thought that the country was vulnerable to SARS.
It did put in place certain measures during the time that it boasted that the country was SARS-free. But these measures (checking the temperature of arrivals from countries with reported SARS cases, and asking them if they have any of the symptoms) now seem halfhearted at best.
Adela Catalon, the Filipino caregiver who arrived from Toronto, Canada, on a visit to her hometown, did pass those “tests” but died of SARS, anyway, and infected her own father besides. Question: to what extent did the government deliberately refuse to implement stricter control measures on arriving travelers so it won’t scare away the tourists?
If the answer is it didn’t, that would be well and good, and we can all console ourselves with the thought that the contagion was something no one could have prevented, or that at least the government did everything it could to keep it out of the country. Unfortunately, one can catch a glimpse of the thinking at work in some parts of officialdom from the way Gordon has opposed the proposal to ban the entry of travelers from SARS-stricken countries on the flimsy reason that the country can’t afford to offend these countries.
But would Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore so far indeed be offended, given the seriousness of the SARS problem, especially in countries like the Philippines where the health system is severely inadequate? Even if they were, would it not be a price worth paying anyway?
President Arroyo has after all said in so many words that the government will take the measures necessary to contain SARS even if these should violate human rights. It’s a matter of survival, said Mrs. Arroyo, which, compared to the right to travel freely within Philippine territory, would indeed be a superior right.
If the government is prepared to do this—to the extent of mobilizing the police and military to enforce the quarantine of entire communities—why is it not prepared to risk the temporary resentment (assuming that they will not understand such a decision in the first place) of SARS-stricken countries for the sake of its citizens?
In his novel The Plague (La Peste), the French Nobel Laureate Albert Camus describes how the people of the French colonial town of Oran, Algeria, were initially in denial, and how, as a result, the plague—the Black Death transmitted through the fleas of rats—spread throughout the entire community.
A parable of the Nazi occupation of France, Camus’s novel nevertheless does suggest how, for reasons as various as the desire to visit one’s sweetheart in a neighboring town, to go with the normal schedules of living, or out of outrage over one’s movements being controlled, men and women delude themselves, even at the risk of death, into thinking that the disease is not that serious, would anyway spare them, or that they would not themselves infect others.
One detects the same delusional quality in some government officials, especially in Richard Gordon’s statement belittling the seriousness of the SARS threat, when he compared the number of deaths from it with the deaths from other diseases, such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. Gordon did not mention, however, that unlike these other diseases, SARS is easily spread through a variety of ways, and what’s more, that there is no known cure for it.
One detects in this delusion the same God-will-take-care attitude prevalent among sex workers who risk aids by not insisting that their clients use condoms—for the sake of the fees, of course. Like these professionals, Gordon too is obviously thinking of the money this cash-strapped government can still make from tourists from China, Hong Kong, Canada and Singapore despite—make that because of—SARS.
The Arroyo administration has announced the need to educate the public on SARS so the disease can hopefully be contained. Education, like charity, begins at home. What it should make perfectly clear to its officials including Gordon is the bottom line of its SARS policy, which Mrs. Arroyo has defined as the overriding need to assure human survival above all else.
(Today/abs-cbnNEWS.com, April 29, 2003)