My sympathies to the Philippines...
by Gohan,Apr/06/2020
So, I talk to several people from the Philippines, some I have known for years and some I've met recently. People from all over the country all tell me the same thing as soon as the subject comes up; people are starving to death all over the Philippines. The government is not helping them, they won't be coming to their aid.
I just recently saw a video on Youtube of Duterte basically telling people that if they defy quarantine (which has been going on for a month straight now), the orders to the police are "shoot them dead" .. shoot them dead. This is the response Duterte's government gives to his people who are dying of starvation? He is basically telling everyone in that country that he doesn't care about any of you and that you can all go die whether it's by starvation or by the bullet. How disgusting..
When I heard of Duterte's draconian, blood bath of a drug war, I was upset about that and I told quite a few people who supported this nonsense that he will eventually turn it onto everyone else. You give power, they don't stop taking it. Now, it's happening. The "drug war" has now been extended onto everyone in that country. The drug is food and water now. Do you see now why supporting Duterte in his murderous drug war was a bad idea? Now, you're all criminals just for wanting to survive another day.
That's the help your government is giving you; a bullet. Not food, not water... death. Go forth and die. It's disgusting and despicable and I hope the people there won't stand for this. It's do or die. This whole world is falling apart at the seams. To everyone in the Philippines, friends or not, my sympathies go out to you and I am sharing your story with others. You are in our hearts and thoughts.
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Yes, it is awful! Moreover, some companies take advantage of it.
Recently my classmate in the US called to Expedia and quickly found out that woman in their customer service from Philippines, so as all other Expedia agents he spoke with before. She broke her professional composure. So she just blowed open about what is going on in her city. She was very scared. She said that this is the only call center in the city which is still open. That Expedia re-directed other sub-websites to their call center since others were closed due to quarantine (besides the US, they also had to serve Canada, Mexico and some other places). Obviously, because of this they were completely swamped... And on top of that, they were working very long hours, non-stop, and were not allowed to leave the building (?). Like wtf does that even mean?..
So, to conclude: besides the fact that one of the largest travel services in the US (and obviously not the only one) uses other countries for customer service (with less money spent on wages and with less stringent labor laws), when the emergency hits, what do they do? Instead of maybe adding some extra customer service agents, maybe even in the home country, they redirect all the traffic of panicking customers to one remaining call center, contributing to the panic even more, and working those poor agents.
Expedia... is suck. Just like its relatives - cruise ship companies...I understand, for people in Philippines it maybe still a chance to get a job, but this job is modern form of a slavery.
Yeah, it's amazing that I hear the same story from people there without even asking about it. People are suffering horribly there right now and all Duterte can do is threaten everyone with violent deaths at the hands of the police and military? Pathetic... and I hope they revolt, I really do. Such things are looking more and more likely in many places. Lockdowns on that scale for this long is going to cause far more death than this virus ever could. Leave it to us to find unlimited ways to make a bad situation worse.
As to the other point, yeah, we've outsourced everything to other countries (mostly China) some of which are pretty much enemies. Now when we have a situation like this, we have no capacity to produce anything ourselves not even masks. It's absolutely pathetic what we've allowed to happen to the US. Countries are stealing mask shipments going to other countries, it's a free for all. We're really seeing the major problems with how we've set things up generally.
I hope this forces us back to a world where countries produce more of their own goods and services. Importing is fine, but not on this scale. It makes us and others so incredibly vulnerable, but so long as the shareholders are happy, that's all that matters. /s
Hope things are well there, Miss Gavrilova. :)
Hi! As for me, I stuck in Moscow. We don’t have niether masks nor tests avalible here. Some commercial clinics provide test for $ 100, which is ridiculous. I got tested for free only because I came back from Spain and the authorities took control over me. I was tested three times but it was found nothing. Not having other options, just in case, I bought a sport mask elevator training mask - it is something! Other than that are no reasons to complain so far. I hope everything is bearable over there as well.
Interesting, I just read it on FB. My friend spoke with a Russian friend who lives in the Philippines, Manila. She asked her about her business, a coffee shop.
Now the cafe is closed, because it is located inside the shopping center and cannot deliver, but they completely were spared of the rent and salary for employees. Also, they do not pay the utility until the end of lock down. People with salaries up to $500 are given subsidies. It seems not that bad.
I didn’t hear anything of that sort of help in Russia and Ukraine. Now, I am a bit confused about what is happening there.
I'm glad that it's not all bad there, thanks.
Three times? They shove that cotton swab way up your nose, right? How does it feel? lol It looks very unpleasant.
I hope you won't go back to Ukraine to find a huge mess. Everything should be ok in Odessa at least, right?