Charles Teves
- Over 1000 bullfrogs were released in watery areas in Quezon City
- This was to prevent mosquitoes from breeding
The dengue situation in the country is not getting any better. On August 6, the Philippines declared dengue as a national epidemic.
Francisco Duque, the current Secretary of the Department of Health, said in a conference that at least 622 people have died because of the disease.
Based on a different statistic, there are nearly 190,000 cases of dengue recorded and 807 people have died from January 1 to August 3, including child actress Sophia Gabrielle Corullo, who was known for her appearances on It’s Showtime segment “Mini Me.”
It is expected that the number of cases will go up to at least 260,000 by the end of the year.
“This is really staggering. This is going to be a record number. This is the compelling reason why we are declaring a state of national dengue epidemic.”
Duque said that interventions to combat the disease are very limited as of now. Decontaminating densely populated areas is one of the few things that can possibly deal with dengue.
“We don’t have a cure. We don’t have a vaccine. These are the only things we can do right now.”
But one barangay refused to be affected with the disease and came up with its own way to combat dengue.
In a viral post by citizen Jong Asilo, photos of a man emptying a sack full of bullfrogs into marshy and watery areas of Barangay Matandang Balara, Quezon City can be seen.
This was ordered by their barangay captain, Allan Franza. Franza had one thousand bullfrogs placed in watery places in the barangay in an effort to prevent mosquitoes from breeding.
Franza and the City government was then bashed on social media for what they did.
Netizens said that the city government is so lazy that they would have bullfrogs do their job rather than clean the areas.
nagpakawala ng mga palaka para kainin ang mga lamok na nagdadala ng dengue. yung trabaho ng barangay na maglinis, ipinaubaya sa mga palaka. busy yata si chairman at mga kagawad magmobile legends
— not scorsaguin (@scorsaguin) August 25, 2019
‘yung trabaho ng Gobyerno pinaubaya sa mga Palaka (Di ko sinasabi kainin ng mga Officials yung lamok ha pero pwede rin HAHA). ANO BA PILIPINAS?!!
— wenj♥️EXO (@haveuseenwenj) August 25, 2019
Pinagisipan kaya yung impact ng isang libong bull frogs… dapat inuna nila yung paglilinis baka mas epektibo pa.
— amy martir (@cathycis) August 25, 2019
Bullfrogs are known as invasive species, which means that they can harm other species in a certain habitat. If they have no predators, then bullfrogs will multiply in no time. Female bullfrogs are known to lay 20,000 eggs at once.
Another mistake was that the frogs were dropped in murky waters, but Aedes aegypti, the mosquito specie that carries the dengue virus, are known to thrive in clean waters.
Mali ata to. New species introduced to an ecosystem can be invasive and can decimate native species. Havent we learned anything from introducing janitor fishes in Pasig river?
— wild_homosapien (@urban_uncle) August 25, 2019
https://twitter.com/skullohmania/status/1165455969020600321
Di ba dengue mosquitoes lay eggs on clean water, not on murky ones?
— Charlie Mike (@unlicomments) August 25, 2019
It was revealed that the frogs are not native to the Philippines, but were bought from Australia where they are known mostly to cause damage to biodiversity.
