Their one-day Manila concert is now over. A lot of people flocked over to the venue to witness two of the currently most popular american idols perform together for the first time in the local scene.

But did you know that David Cook and David Archuleta almost got arrested by local health authorities?

The current policy to have everyone arriving the country checked for Influenza A (H1N1) or swine flu symptoms nearly got the two celebrities in trouble. 

As they arrived and rushed into the airport last Wednesday, the two Davids missed the said mandatory health check. Quarantine bureau officials only caught up with them on Thursday. And in their hotel rooms, they were “reminded” that they can be arrested if they do not cooperate. The reminders included among others; keeping a distance of six feet from other people, what to do if they exhibit flu-like symptoms, and use of hand sanitizers and other “little things that their handlers may forget.”

Since the concert pushed through successfully, I think it can be assumed the group complied.

I have always believed that in implementing any security policy or measure, you have to do it effectively or not bother at all. Unchecked loopholes simply cannot be allowed. They really tend to make the entire practice eventually futile. With that said, I have a couple of issues with the current flu check policy.

• How did high profile personalities like Archuleta and Cook get missed by the quarantine people on the airport? Knowing that these people are going to have a rather extensive exposure to the public, shouldn’t they have been on a super watch list or something?
• Why did it take that long (already in their hotel rooms) to catch up to the party of the two? Wouldn’t that mean if any possible threat was there, it potentially already got time to spread?

To add to this, it could also be noted that when boxing superstar Manny Pacquiao recently arrived from his fight in the U.S., one of the first things he did in public was to go to the densely populated Quiapo church and attend mass. Although this could be viewed as proof of how Pacman is a true-blooded practicing Catholic. Isn’t this also a blatant violation of the quarantine policy for a potential carrier of the dreaded flu?

We currently don’t have any recorded case of the flu yet. So the government must be doing something right somewhere; or maybe we’ve just been really lucky so far. But is this flu check for real or just for show? As it is, it might just be making us look more foolish than anything else.

Related posts:

1. The Next American Idol Judge!

Tags: american idol, david archuleta, david cook, Manny Pacquiao, swine flu

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 16th, 2009 at 11:30 PM and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.