At the end of March 2020, Leah Callon-Butler, director of Emfarsis, who lives in the Philippines, shared her experience on how someone in the Philippines went about their lives during the Enhanced Community Quarantine. She described how tough it is just to get their daily supplies. You can read the full article here: Letter from the Philippines: Life During Coronavirus
Last March 16, 2020, the Philippine government imposed an Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) in Luzon, which was effectively a total lockdown, restricting the movement of the population except for necessity, work and health circumstances, in response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
This situation results into panic-buying with some opportunists selling supplies at higher than the suggested retail price to people. People, at least those who are able to, resorted to hoarding goods. Fake news rapidly spread on social media, which caused people to panic. Losing stable income and even getting money from their savings are only some of the problems Filipinos (and all over the world) are facing right now because of this pandemic.
Essentially, the pandemic and the lockdown demonstrated a cold hard truth in the Philippines – that cash is still king. “Crypto would be awesome in this situation (especially since twice as many Filipinos have smartphones than they do bank accounts). But I haven’t yet met any provincial locals willing to accept it,”Leah noted, while openly wondering what the tipping would be for her to start queuing at the ATM.
Read the full article here:
Letter from the Philippines: Life During Coronavirus
Published: Coindesk by Leah Callon-Butler (March 31, 2020)