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The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns we have experienced for more than a year now has crippled our economy but it has also resulted to some positive changes that we can take advantage of. These are transformations that we can fully utilize to ensure our economic recovery. One of these changes was the spawning of a new cadre of entrepreneurs.

April is the cruelest month, to borrow the words of poet T.S. Eliot. It is, indeed, the cruelest month for the nation’s struggling workers this year. Hundreds of thousands easily lost their jobs as a result of the harsh rules of the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) in the capital region and the nearby provinces of Bulacan, Cavite, Rizal and Laguna.

This was the word used by the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) to describe the growing gap between the number of vaccines available to rich countries and the measly numbers given to developing countries. The latter rely mainly on COVAX, which was set up a year ago and was envisioned to accelerate the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world. That vision is becoming more blurry even as the entire world remains in the clasp of the COVID-19 pandemic.