Drivers Resort to Loan to Avoid Hunger

WHY NO CRIME SPIKE REPORTED

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

DAGUPAN CITY – Motorized tricycle drivers and their family here avoid starvation because of the loan sharks who lent them amid the enhanced community quarantine imposed by the Philippines president.

Under this condition that started March 16, 2020, strict home quarantine had been implemented in all households, transportation had been suspended, provision for food and essential health services had been regulated and the presence of uniformed personnel to enforce quarantine procedures had been heightened.

“Mas lalo sa akin dalawaang anak ko tapos nagagatas pa (Specially for me I have two kids and they are being fed by milk),” Hernan Cabunot, 26, told this writer in a telephone interview the problem brought to him and his family by the government implemented quarantine and curfew.

MOTORIZED TRIKE drivers in the Philippines. These hand to mouth existence workers like their other counter parts in the blue collar jobs absorbed the economic brunt brought by the enhanced community quarantine imposed last March 16 by President Rodrigo Duterte to fight the lethal phantom pandemic Corona Virus 19. Photo credit GMA Network

He said that after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered police and the military to enforce these clear and present danger policy he immediately went to his patronized lender who lent him five thousand pesos (P5,000) that he promised to pay six thousand pesos (P6,000) in two months.

Cabunot said before Corona Virus 2019 (Covid19) spawned its deadly disease to people here and abroad  he earned a net of five hundred pesos daily.

“I am earning one hundred pesos more than the four hundred pesos of Amboy because I ferry passenger in a university belt,” he cited while referring to fellow driver Manuel Rivera, 35, whose routes are in different areas of the 171,271 populated (2015 Census) coastal city.

“Kaya nga ano pinipilit naming mamasada ayaw nila. Wala kaming magawa siyempre ini impound iyang tricycle (We try to pick up passengers but law enforcers barred us. We could not do anything because they would impound our trike),“ Rivera, who resides in Barangay Caranglaan here, said.

He and his family survived the hunger in the one week shutdown of commercial vehicles, schools, and selected businesses because of the money from loan sharks colloquially called five-six because of their usurious rate.

He cited that the four hundred pesos daily earning was enough to feed his family.

He lamented however that he did not save for this tragedy because he did not foresee this pandemic to happen in his life time.

Cabunot said that the local government unit in Barangay Tapuac distributed to each family in the squatter area here two kilos of rice, two cans of sardine, one can of corned beef, and two packs of noodles.

But they are not enough for the seven days’ distress and could worsen if the quarantine and curfew drag up beyond the April 14 end of the deadline imposed by the palace.

Will he and other drivers who numbered to multiple thousands here resort to more loans?
He did not know because his lender is in a bind how the public utility vehicle drivers could pay him if the deadline is extended to another indefinite date. 
Will crime rates hike if they could not borrow another set of loan?

“It could happen,” he said especially if the LGU could not feed its constituents like him and his family despite President Duterte exhortation to the local governments to use their funds.

 Failure of the lenders to lend and the absence of the LGU to subsidize the food of the poor mean swelling numbers of cases like thievery, robbery, and homicide because the poor  resort on either of them to save their family from starvation and death, Rivera cited.

 Most people infected with the COVID-19 , according to the World Health Organization, will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment.  Older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness.
The virus had killed thousands already worldwide.

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