Yesterday was the first day of the Restricted of Movement Order (RMO) as issued by our Prime Minister earlier this week. I believe not everyone is clear of what RMO means and most them went into panic mode and started panic buying, panic traveling and all sorts of other things that they can be panic off when they shouldn’t be. Every business must close their offices and get their staffs to work from home except for the essential businesses such as food, services and anything that falls under necessities (kan?). So, things like cinema, fashion retail and whatever must close their stores. Even all the educational institutions will be close for the next two weeks.
Out of all this commotion, what upset me the most is how the message is being conveyed to the mass public. I can assure you that half of the people actually don’t understand what RMO is and how it works. Most probably because the public didn’t know how serious Covid-19 is and how important it is for them to do their part in preventing the virus from spreading. But I’ve been seeing people still going out as if nothing happened and some of us even went back to our hometown (I’m one of them).
First of all I would like to apologize but please hear me out. I understand the risk of me going back to my hometown and all of the students who don’t have anywhere to go during the RMO. I’m a working adult and for me to be ordering food everyday for 14 days is already too much. Imagine all these students who don’t even get to eat a decent meal on normal day and now they have RMO? I’m sure they don’t have the luxury to order food for 14 days. What should’ve been done is to let these students stay inside campus and all the cafes inside campus should stay open or maybe give out free meals to those in need.
I mean that’s the only reason I chose to go back to my hometown because I can’t afford to order in food every day. I really hope that the government will come up with a contingency plan to help lessen the burden of the public. Maybe have banks to postpone the repayment of any loans for this month, allow people to withdraw money from their EPC acc 2 to help them get through this period. I mean if the government don’t want to use the government money to help us, at least get these other organizations to step in and help out anyway they can.
RMO is not as serious as a total lockdown and I really hope we won’t go through that phase. Everyone please makes sure we take a good care of ourselves and immediately get yourself tested if you have the symptoms. Let’s fight this virus together!
P/S: I’m in my room the whole day with just my work and my imagination.