Ozamiz Politics in the Time of COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract
While Ozamiz city’s politics is in its early stage of recovery from its previous political deterioration proliferated by its former ruling power predators, the city’s politics is yet again put to the test with the advent of a global pandemic. As the disease progresses in the Philippine archipelago over the past five weeks some 5, 453 Filipinos are infected, with 349 deaths and 353 recoveries; such are the numbers even if the entire country is in strict community lockdown. The local government unit headed by the city Mayor, in coordination with the provincial government in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic has placed the entire city under community quarantine. Nonessential establishments are closed; however, grocery stores, pharmacies and the city’s public market remain open; classes in both public and private institutions in all levels and school functions are suspended. Under the city’s community quarantine memorandum 24 hours of curfew for students and high risk adults is implemented; everybody are encouraged to stay in their respective houses and ration of food packs are distributed for every household; checkpoints are placed in national roads in the entrance and exit of the city in order to limit engagement from the people outside Ozamiz; social distancing policy is strictly implemented. The radical means the city has undertaken is directed towards stopping any possibility of contagion in the city. However, with the majority of the population being poor, problems of subsistence in the midst of vast work displacements and the lack of income among the city’s poor arise. It is for this reason that the paper is intended to assess in particular the program and the steps undertaken by the local government to answer the cries of the poor during this difficult time.