After almost a month-long of success in so far as keeping our COVID-19 positive cases down, we’re back to square one due to the sheer ineptitude of a BPO company to enforce protocols in place. Indeed, as the song goes, some good things never last.
From single digits to sometimes nil, we got surprised when the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) reported an outbreak at Transcom that warranted their temporary closure over the weekend.
According to EOC chair and City Administrator, Em Ang, 41 employees tested positive for the coronavirus and contact tracing has become a nightmare because Transcom failed to implement the BacTrac system in their establishment.
That news became a fodder in my group chats and a friend of mine commented that this may once again fire up the public to discriminate against call center agents as it had at the onset of the pandemic.
But in my view, this whole mess can be attributed to management. We have had a similar incident then but that can be forgiven because we were all grappling in addressing the pandemic.
This time though, protocols are in place and if we based it on recent recordings of cases, the city government has made strides in putting it under control. To discover that the BacTrac system was employed yet not utilized is very irresponsible, to say the least.
If management wilfully implemented minimum health measures, this would not have happened. Granting that it may be unavoidable for the virus to spread in a BPO company because it is enclosed and agents sit close to each other than to our liking.
However, the spread could have been contained if BacTrac was immediately activated upon identification of the first case. A visibly irked Em said they had to do it manually which requires more manpower and resources and a swab and extraction team had to stay up all night to ensure they caught the spread in time.
We’ve been told 41 employees are infected. The EOC is now in the homes of these 41, swabbing household members. Let’s not forget other exposures outside of their homes and if we based it on the World Health Organization’s probable ratio of infection of 1.5 to 3.5 persons per positive patient, we might be seeing three-digit figures in the coming weeks.
I was listening to Em’s interview over the radio and she was visibly irked at what transpired at Transcom. And I would too if I were in her place because this spells months of efforts that were jeopardized because of a company’s recklessness.
Speaking of radio, I was aghast at a post from one of the new broadcast stations in town over what they construed as a newsworthy of publication. It was about a man caught masturbating while browsing inside an ukay-ukay joint.
It was shared over a thousand times and the comments were expectedly downright trashy, just like the story itself. I cannot, for the life of me, understand what made the executives of that broadcast station post that as a news story. It does not even pass any of the criteria of what news should be all about.
It was meant to titillate, plain and simple. If the station thought it was one way of engaging the public they were indeed successful as the post was shared over a thousand times. But what the executives probably failed to understand is that it also gives the public an idea that they represent the ills of media.
One of the top honchos in that station was just recently elected into office at the Negros Press Club. When a protest was filed for alleged vote-buying I was aghast and even called the incumbent president to investigate the matter and put it to rest if there is no evidence of such claims.
The majority in our profession are trying to live up to the ethical standards set by the media community. And just like the case presented by the EOC, it makes my blood boil that an act of one taints the whole industry.
The act of masturbating in public falls under public scandal. If the media entity probably angled it in such by interviewing authorities on what charges will be filed against the culprit, then it would have been acceptable.
But alas, it was nothing short of a comical storytelling the world that we have in our midst a pervert who masturbated in public. And that makes it a story worth telling to their summation.
By the way, the act of doing it publicly is what is wrong….but the act itself, if done privately, is deemed normal. Ask the experts.*