Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 12) — The use of technology significantly helped China improve its condition in its fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, Philippine Ambassador to China Jose Santiago “Chito” Sta. Romana said on Friday.
The contagion initially broke out in Wuhan, the sprawling capital of Central China’s Hubei province, in December. The city, which was the pandemic’s original epicenter, was placed on lockdown for 76 days which ended on April 8.
“They employed a lot of technology to be able to control the epidemic,” Sta. Romana told a Laging Handa virtual briefing. “Ngayon, mahusay na ang kondisyon dito.”
[Translation: Now, the condition here is well.]
Among the ways the Chinese used technology include monitoring the movements of residents and determining whether they are safe to travel, the Philippine envoy added.
“Kapag pupunta ka sa isang restaurant or lilipad ka sa eroplano or sasakay ka sa tren, chine-check nila iyong app sa phone kung saan ka nanggaling noong past two weeks, or mayroon silang color coding kung clear ka for travel or kung dapat bantayan or hindi ka puwede,” Sta. Romana explained, adding that the country had even utilized drone technology.
[Translation: If you’re heading to a restaurant, flying by plane, or boarding a train, they check through a smartphone application where you came from the past two weeks, or they have a color coding indicating whether you are clear to travel, need to be observed, or not allowed at all.]
The Philippines can learn a lesson or two from China on its use of technology to combat the virus, Sta. Romana noted.
“It’s very important, particularly for contact tracing as well as for tabulating data to be able to tabulate the cases,” he said.
The Philippines launched its official contact tracing application called StaySafe in April, which serves as the “official social-distancing, health-condition-reporting, and contact-tracing system that assists in the government’s response to COVID-19.”
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Earlier this month, the Department of Tourism also launched SafePass, an application that “provides digital solutions” also on contact tracing along with space capacity planning and enforcement of health and safety protocols.
Aside from fighting the deadly virus, Sta. Romana said China has “certain best practices” the Philippines can pick up in addressing major problems, citing the former’s history.
“The lesson really here is how a country can pull itself up, can particularly develop and be able to solve the issue of absolute poverty, almost 800,000,000 even according to the estimate of the World Bank, they have helped to be able to get out from poverty,” he said. “And this year, they are trying to eliminate absolute poverty completely. Their poverty rate now is only less than one percent, and they are trying to reduce it to zero.”
“It’s quite a case study in development,” he added. “And it’s actually a big case study for third world countries like the Philippines because we still have a major problem in terms of poverty alleviation, economic development.”
While China has its fair share of positive and negative examples, Sta. Romana said the country still has a lot of practices “worthy of emulation.”
“The key is how to apply it to the Philippine conditions,” he said.
