DAY 17: ECQ

Less than an hour ago, somebody very close to my nephews ... somebody who they grew up with ... somebody who has always been a part of their lives... was stolen by the virus.

I know the boys are heartbroken: suddenly the impact of this pandemic is right at the doorstep.  The heartbreak is no longer something you think about. Now the pain is real.

They have lost a childhood friend ... who was their age, who spent years of her life with them, who they loved right to the very end.

And they cannot even be with her family because we are all locked up in our little worlds right now, threatened not by law but by survival.  The danger is no longer a concept either. It is real.  You do not want to make headcounts of how many people you know by name or by face or by encounter have been taken away brutally by the virus.

On the seventeenth day, the learning continues  The truth and inevitability of death is just one of them.  There are so many more than I have come to realize throughout this day when I desperately try to make it sound normal so that I may be useful.

(1) Ever since the lock-in, I have not worn clothes meant for the outside world.

I have been in my comfortable house clothes --- the only time I wear shoes is when I work out in the patio for an hour and give myself a little sun. But it is not like I am wearing my gym clothes or anything like that. 

So far the past two weeks, I have not worn long pants: no slacks, jeans or joggers. I have not work anything with a collar. 

All my real world clothes have been washed, dried and ironed and stacked in my closet since I found no use for them for the past seventeen days.

That was when something hit me. My God, why do I have all these clothes?

Suddenly they were meaningless, useless.  I do not want to go out because people my age are at biggest risk if we dared to venture into the outside world.  Even if I wanted to step out of my home, the risks are much too big as people I know are just being taken away by this unspeakable chain of events.

I realize that these clothes meant to cover me ... or even define in the eyes of others are really meaningless when it comes to a choice between life or death.  It does not matter what you wear: it is how you take care of your body that is most important.

(2) I also look at my shoes and tell myself "What a fool have you been?"  I have all these shoes and nowhere to go.  

All my life I have been defining myself by things I do outside this house.

It is mind boggling enough to realize that I have stayed in here for seventeen straight days with no reason whatsoever to wear any of my good shoes.  When it goes down to basics ... what they have been saying all along is true.  But it is different when truth smacks you right in the face.

All these material things you accumulate to prove to yourself and the world about what you are worth ... are useless when it comes to facing the dilemma of survival.  Not the brand of your cars, not the signature labels of your clothes ... 

I was told about that. I know that.  But now all these deaths and tragedies and feeling of helplessness emphasize this all the more.


(3) It is about the people.  It is about needing others.

In my line of work, I meet a whole spectrum of personalities: from geniuses to fools who actually think they are smart, for people who want to use you and even some people who want to be used.  There are people you have to like because they are part of a machinery that runs your everyday life.  But there are others who you really like ... some who you love in varying degrees and for an even greater assortment of reasons.

Now that we are forced to be isolated from one another, the need to reach out becomes all the more important.

A moment of abandonment here: the first thing I am going to do when they announce that it is already one hundred percent safe is that I am going to go around hugging people I love. I will not be happy with handshakes or those all too rehearsed and polite beso-besos.  I am going to be HUGGING PEOPLE.

What this virus taught us is that we need each other. 

What this pandemic made us realize is that we have people who form all kinds of families in our lives: biological families, peer families,  incidental families.

Tonight I want to make sure my nephews are all right because their close friend died but I cannot do anything but send messages through the Facebook Messenger or text them.

We make it a point to have a group video chat in Zoom or in Facebook with my friends just to check up on how we are doing, how we look and the effects of not shaving for two weeks.  We all try to make a joke out of it because the situation is NOT FUNNY but that is the only way we can cope.

I miss my kids in school.  I worry about them ... especially some who I know need somebody to slap their hands occasionally or tell them to tow the line.  I miss seeing the faces of my co-workers on the set ... the sound of people having lunch in the cafeteria or right in the middle of a street while shooting on location. I miss my friends at the gym, my spinning class instructors and classmates.

I miss people ... and I want them back so badly.


(4) I am being taught the importance of solitude and the value of silence.

I hated Manila traffic.  I hated the noise, the cacophony.

Then it all stopped.

Instead I heard the wind rustling through the leaves and ... oh, God ... the chirping of birds.

And I went crazy with the silence.

I realized that I was not used to it but I was being taught.  

I was being punished for my insatiable greed for sounds, colors and sensations. So now I am being taught how to remain still. Be quiet.
And, as I mentioned in an earlier entry, TO ACCEPT.

I am being made to realize the value of life ... and the significance of death.

In a span of two weeks, so many people I know have died.  You read the news and find out the death toll tumbling from the U.S. and Europe.  Then ... only then you realize ... how much of a fool we have all been to think that we have nearly touched the magic of omnipotence.

No, we are not all powerful.  We are weak. We are human. And in accepting that ... that is when we validate who we are and what we are worth.

DAY 16: ECQ

There are so many ways to rephrase it but the gist is still there:  if you do not learn from your past mistakes, you will be caught in a spin cycle that will worsen with each turn.

You will keep making the mistakes over and over again.

That is why there is wisdom with age.  That is why when a Millennial sarcastically sneers, "Yes, Boomer ..." I smile back and marvel at his naivete, his ignorance, his cluelessness.  Yes, this Boomer has been through a lot.  I do not only know my history. I have lived through it.

The funny thing about this generation of national leaders is that we are, more or less, the Children of Martial Law.

I was in freshman college when Martial Law was declared that day in September.  And we never expected that it would take over a decade before we would return to what was perceived as freedom.  

What I remembered the most was that there was a media blackout and that the violent protests happening in the streets during my high school senior years was simply wiped out and replaced by this ... this silence.  This dreadful, threatening silence that was only marred by government sponsored broadcasts and the booming of a new anthem called Awit ng Bagong Lipunan sung by a choir of what looked like hundreds.

Those memories are still embedded in my mind.  

Those were the turning points of my personal history only to be followed much later by the First People Power experience. I was not in EDSA but at PTV4, manning the communications and monitoring events.  

Those few days in February 1986 were unforgettable: we were literally spending sleepless days and nights inside what is now ABS-CBN in Mother Ignacia Avenue, trying to put order into what was like a spontaneous combustion of protest and almost a decade long desire for change.

From my freshman year in college all the way to the time I finished my graduate degree and teaching in the University, my mindset was shaped by the decade of Martial Law.  

I cannot explain exactly how that affected the way I looked at my country, my response to authority or my attitude towards dissent and criticism.  I do not know either what I could have been had I been braver or not pre-conditioned to think that anything that goes against the grain of authority is not merely being critical but subversive.

Those were days of history. And we Boomers lived through it.


Unfortunately those stories are not told anymore.  

Instead they are replaced by new mythologies of families and personalities who are perpetuated as messiahs of the nation.  As it is said, history is written by the victorious ... and history has always been subjective.

Apparently we Boomers failed to extract the lessons of what we have gone through to repair whatever political, social and cultural damage done.  Instead, we did not look back under the pretext of moving ahead --- and repeating the same mistakes all over again.

Now on the sixteenth day of the Enhanced Community Quarantine, there are so many dormant issues that are slowly rising to the surface.  These require careful analysis and hopefully a palatable kind of understanding.  The Boomers should be the first to know this because we know how divisiveness destroys people ... and the nation cannot be defined by the leaders alone but more so its citizens.

We need to be objective and understand.

This understanding is not to be tainted by partisanship, by being judged for your loyalties and affiliations --- but by an objective look at what is happening in the here and now. 

Nothing substantial can come out if everything is oversimplified as a case of Black or White.  Life can never be that reductive --- in the same manner that we cannot discuss national issues by having a knee jerk prejudgment as to whether one is a DDS or a Dilawan.

We should think as Filipinos, not defined by parties or colors. We should think as a people.

If you are talking about the future of a nation, you cannot just be shackled down by political affiliations and loyalties.  

You cannot be blinded by one's devotion to cult figures or allow yourself to be exploited by tests of unwavering devotion or hallelujah promises.

Perhaps that is what is disturbing this Boomer.  

I have seen too many clowns perform ... I have gone to so many circuses which include dancing bears and elephants standing on two legs. I do not want to turn cynical so that nothing amuses and impresses me any more because I know everything is an act. It is so easy to impersonate leadership.

That is why each time somebody in public office render a grand gesture, I give it a double take.  I ask myself if this act of benevolence is a sincere manifestation of this man's or woman's capacity to do goodness or is this an investment for a much bigger dream, a much greater ambition ... or for a future plan? Is he or she campaigning by accumulating papogi points?

With the birth of social media, the eyes of the public are focused on what it wants to see --- and there are those who know exactly how to play with the magic of the cameras peering into their each and every move.  

I would rather judge a leader when nobody is looking and listen to what he says when there is no microphone aimed at his direction.

Yet we know that it is no only the showcase of these grand gestures of charity and selflessness that define true leadership. You can tell the significance of a leader not through words and actions alone but by the vision that he shares, the inspiration that he gives those entrusted to his care.  

Inspiration should not be mistaken for reckless adulation which is on the eve of fanatic devotion. Inspiration encourages growth in individuals ... not the retardation of their thinking into blind faith.

As a Boomer who surveys the political landscape, I still arm myself with hope that the next generation of Filipino leaders will do a far much better job than we have done. 

I take no shame in admitting that my generation --- we Boomers, we children of Martial Law --- could have done so much better and we should no longer make excuses for how much we really screwed it up.  We could have made great changes but we chose to dance to the same song just rearranged to sound like a different tune.

After this pandemic, we have crossed another landmark of history.
Are we going to really sit down and learn from it or are we just going to relegate what we are all going through, seeing and realizing as part of a shallow collective memory?

Yes, Boomer. We can still do something about it in our own little ways.

DAY 15: ECQ

Fifteen days and so many lessons.  Too many realizations.

Some are heartwarming, uplifting.  Others are heartbreaking ... even disgusting.

What you have suspected all along are now confirmed.

What you chose to ignore, gloss over or simply take it with a sigh you can no longer just accept and say whatever.

And with each and every day that passed through this uniquely difficult time do you realize that the world will never be the same after this.

These are necessary pains.

Sometimes you need to be jolted out of your comfort zone, shaken from the insulated world of yours to see how you are a mere particle to a universe so large for you to control.

If this pandemic is the revenge of Mother Nature, then it is because we deserve it.

We have depleted resources, raped the environment and allowed the power of money and commerce to take priority over the safekeeping of the planet we live in.  So what did we actually expect?

More than that, there are the particulars about the things immediately around you that shake you into the truth. Let me run down some of them because if I become too ambitious to cover all possible grounds, this blog might just go on past the lifting of the quarantine.

First: we finally have to learn to put leaders who are leaders rather than to be charmed by myths and personalities.

If there is one thing immediately proven by the turn of events is that you can easily weed out the pebbles from the nuggets of gold.  You can easily pinpoint who deserves your respect or even adulation --- or who has succeeded in bamboozling you into thinking that he or she is of any value to his or her constituency.

I need not mention names because you can easily fill in the blanks.

We have been discussing (or even laughing about ) this for the longest time and always threw in that excuse that it is the five hundred pesos that purchased the vote that brought about this catastrophe of having the highly unqualified hold positions of responsibility not only in our community but our country.

The "enlightened"and "educated" always pointed to the basement dwellers (to use Bong Joon-ho's metaphor) as the ones who sold their ballots to empower the undeserving.  This excuse can be so casually used to wash off any sense of accountability or responsibility for the perpetuation of the corruption of democracy.

But then again one asks: who actually implements or employs this machinery but also the "enlightened" if not the "educated"?  

Add also the rich and powerful --- who, of course would do everything humanly imaginable to be richer and more powerful.  

Who also perpetuated this myth that leadership is in the genes?  Or that it is a family tradition to be enthroned in corridors of power because it is a Divine Right of sorts, anointed by imaginary gods?  Who actually immortalized mythologies that it is the duty of the children to follow the footsteps of their ancestors to reign over domains in the country?  

That is not defined as democracy but a permutation of fiefdoms.

O, eh, di ngayon nagkabukuhan, di ba? 

In moments of great crisis --- when leadership is needed, when determination and vision and focus are required --- the truth about who we put into office is blatantly revealed.  All the burloloys of propaganda prove ineffective --- inasmuch as two cans of sardines, a cup of instant noodles and a ganta of rice do not constitute fulfilling a responsibility to someone who voted for you to take care of him.

Secondly, we realize the dire need for a larger and more ennobling vision for us as a country.

What is most apparent is that those who were able to handle this pandemic most successfully are not necessarily the richest of countries but those who governments and citizens shared a common vision and goal.  For instance, Vietnam was able to contain the pandemic because it had foresight and was not beholden to anybody but its people.  If one looks at Thailand, despite the earlier outbreak, it did not take them long to put a lid to the exploding problem and give a sense of direction to what they identified as solutions.

There again we go back to the amount of divisiveness we have in this country --- and how we seem to thrive on it.  What the more excitable among us do not see is that divisiveness has always been a tool used to blur the formulation of effective solutions with opposing camps screaming at each other about what is the better way to go. 

That boils down again to the need for trust and not blind faith on leaders who will steer the ship of the nation to its right course.  Now that we are treading rough waters, we do not only need a strong-willed captain but lieutenants as well who will tell us where to go and how we must do things --- and we are convinced enough to trust them for what they want us to do.

Only then can we really survive this worldwide catastrophe.  Only when we hear voices telling us that it is going to be all right because somebody we put into a position of power is taking care of us --- only then can we believe that we are going to be all right.

DAY 14: ECQ

Two weeks.

It has been two weeks.  Or a little less.

I was in the gym last 16th then went to the supermarket right after ... then went back home.  I have not left since.  So technically I was out of the immediate domain of my residence for the past twelve days.

Since then I have been going through the same routine --- day in, day out.

I need my seven hours of sleep --- so I wake up at about eight in the morning (something completely unimaginable during the normal days when I have to be up by seven or even earlier if I am going to school), I have my breakfast while writing on my journal or skimming through social media for the news ... then by ten-thirty I should be out in the patio, garbed in my gym outfit (just for the sake of feeling that I am still in the gym) then board my stepper for an hour or so ... then take my shower, go straight to lunch ... proceed to the workroom to write, read or survey the net.

I do that until dinner, then have my dinner --- go back to writing until I feel it is time to hibernate in my bedroom to catch Netflix.

My God, I have been doing that for the past twelve days!

What worries me the most at this point is that:

(A) There will come a point in time because of sheer familiarity that I am going to actually ENJOY this state of semi-vegetation.

What if all of a sudden it dawns upon me that that this is my ultimate goal in life: to photosynthesize.  I mean, I have never slept so good without the aid of Sleepwell or any of the herbal teas that knock you unconscious after a cup.  I have never had such predictable days so much so that I am now familiar with the six kinds of barks that my neighbor's dogs give each time they have the compulsion to yelp.

As my nephew pointed out ... there comes a point in time when your dog starts to demand space.

During the normal schedule-burdened days of appointments and commitments, the chances of actually bonding and playing with your canine friends become few and far in between.  They go crazy when they see you ... especially when you give them morsels of your time to make them feel important.

Aba,eh, since this lock down, my Labrador named Meghan has had much too much of me.  Whereas before all I would do was call her name and she would come barging into the kitchen to play catch with me ... now she gives me this withering look that implies, "Uh, can you gimme a break, ok?" 


(B) I am not exactly experiencing cabin fever but ... this has only been two weeks and things seemed to have been redefined in my existence.

My God, I want to go to the supermarket!  That for me is the ultimate adventure to break the rhythm of mediocrity.  I am craving to push a cart and buy kalamansis in bags, gallons of Zonrox and the Holy Grail of all grocery items --- rolls and rolls of two ply toilet paper.  Why?  Because no trip to the grocery is complete without such a purchase ... or so it seems in a society prone to panic that there might come a time that you will have nothing to wipe your derriere aside from the jet gush of water from your bidet.

But corollary to this need to brave the virus infested air to go to the grocery is another challenge ...


(C) I am not sure if I am ready to wait it out exercising the much needed social and physical distance before I can get into the grocery.

I have seen photos of people lining up outside the drugstore and the grocery ... some taking hours just to get through.  Yes, there are properly distanced chairs placed strategically outside the supermarket but ...when you get there are the surge hour, you are bound to be uploading enough Tik Toks to cause chaos to the entire application.

Unlike other countries which have special policies for Senior citizens during these most extraordinary times, I am not sure if there are express privileges given to us who have crossed the six decades mark.

Well, yeah, I even heard that a certain city bans senior citizens from entering the supermarket. The reason is because we are the most vulnerable to the virus ---and it is assumed that we are not to be allowed to be exposed to the rest of the human population, especially the stores for fear that we will be infected.

But what is not being placed in the equation is that not all senior citizens have people with them who can do their errands, buy their necessities or even tend to their needs.  I have friends --- ladies and gentlemen for that matter --- who are past sixty years of age, living alone or still serving as heads of their families and do not depend on yayas or drivers for their daily needs.

So what about them? What about these senior citizens who take pride in their independence and are now being castigated for wanting to be useful despite their age?

( Someone made mention of home deliveries of groceries.  Yes, they are right. But these services are apparently not geared towards something like a worldwide pandemic.  The sudden surge of orders to be delivered to homes could not have been met by the facilities of these stores.

Despite their good intentions, online purchases and house deliveries are still relatively new and scarce even in so-called metropolis like Manila.  Uhm, this first world convenience is still much of a come-on for establishments who want to uplift the third world frame of mind).

(D) I want to know what banks still have branches open for transactions.  Truth: the ATMS are being depleted faster than you can punch your pin code.  Early in the morning I have already been warned that all the ATMs within my periphery are kaput because of the wild rush for cash.

You check the internet for which branches still have service and you find that there is but a handful and they are not exactly quite near to where you are.  Then you figure out what is the best way to deal with this considering that if this really stretches out for months everyone is definitely going to run out of cash.

So unless you have one of these room-size safes in your house (with an elevator to bring you down to Basement 2 where it is located), then you know that eventually you are going to be running out of precious cash. This above the fact that you are not earning a single cent ever since the lock down took place ... and your bills are still piling up (despite delays in payment) and worry about how the hell you are going to deal with all that after this whole ordeal is over.

Okay. It is as if worrying can bring you anything except acid reflux and really bad skin.

Deal with this one at a time.

Acknowledge there are problems because turning your head away from them does not solve anything as well.  You only add more problems.

In the meantime, let me worry about Netflix.  If I will go Spanish or Korean tonight.

DAY 13: ECQ

The first thing I came across was this video sent to me by a friend in our Viber Group.

The video featured a discussion of a letter from a teacher from China.  It started out saying that if you felt that you were in the utmost bottom of the pits, then consider the experience of the first group of people who have been locked down since the outbreak of the NCOV19 in the early part of the year.


The message of the letter as discussed by a host and reacted upon by a panel was simple: ACCEPT THE SITUATION.  

Accepting that this is the way that it is and that you cannot do anything about it is the vital first step to be able to survive the next few weeks --- or even months --- before we can even attempt to go back to how it was or how we still want it to be.

Sure. It may be somebody's fault why the world is now in almost a total lock down ... but it is not within our powers to change the course of events.  We can only do so by being responsible and responding to the problem with reason, sobriety and positivism.  No, not positive of the virus but assured that one day this will all end (in whatever way it would conclude) and our concern is how to behave in the here and now.

Now that made a lot of sense.

Are we bored? Miserable? Worried? About to scream out of sheer frustration because we are forced into this quarantine, locked up inside our homes?  

Actually, we do have a choice  We can follow instructions and keep ourselves within the periphery of our homes, our personal spaces. Or we can be mavericks by giving the finger to all the warnings and scream, "YOLO! I am gonna parteeee ..." because you think this health threat is overrated, a product of media misinformation and destroying your calendar of things-to-do in a life already made too short.

Yes, it is your choice to behave or live the way you choose to do as long as you do not harm anybody else along the way.  

You can tell the virus to f--k off, but make sure that if it hits you --- only you will be f--ked off and not anybody else who you have unwittingly dragged into your dance of hedonism. Your YOLO is not necessarily anybody else's war cry.

So take it for what it is worth: we are in this situation, we accept it ... and make the most out of it.

Making the most out of it means not spending each day missing out on things that used to constitute your everyday existence.

I remember about a month or so ago I wished for a few days off.  I was sincerely hoping and praying for just about two or three days of having no appointments, not addressing any problems with the productions or the school. Just give me three days, I said, so I can loll in bed and finish this guilty pleasure novel ... or maybe just watch enough Netflix to numb my brain.  

How would I know God would answer with ... a month?

OK. I have stopped climbing walls out of sheer fear that there is nothing to expect. 

Suddenly all my entries in my Google calendar have become useless.  There are no appointments.  There are no deadlines.  But why is the restlessness there so that thirteen days later I have not yet lolled in bed and read that effing book?!

I realized the problem after hearing a part of what the video had to say.

You don't mind going on a sleep-until-ten-in-the-morning vacation as long as there is something to expect when the down time is over.  You do not mind going into a total chill mode if you know when is the deadline, when this will end ... and when the left of real life will begin.

In this scenario, we don't know. We still do not know when it will be over.

That is one of the ugly facts we have to deal with: we really do not know when it will be all right to go out of our houses, feel safe shaking hands and hugging people ... or braving the hours of traffic again.  We simply do not know and we are only playing this by ear.

The suggestions were clear. Do not make any plans over and beyond what is in front of you.  In some New Age terminology, let it flow.  In the language of my parents, que sera sera.  Whatever will be, will be.  

The problem is that we are not wired like that any more.  Maybe all that tension defining our daily lives of beating deadlines and making schedules and commitments has forbidden us to simply coast along, ride the tide and see where it all goes. We want to know where we should be at a specific time and at a given place.

But we have no choice now.  We are locked down and locked in.

We have no choice but to wait.  Not only do we know the real deadline but what lies ahead.  

One this is for sure: the world will never be the same after this.

We are not only talking about the lives stolen by the virus but the way we perceive our lives and the people who run our nations.  Too many things have been revealed for us to simply "go back to normal"and refer to these early months of 2020 as the time we were all forced to go on house arrest with a threat of life or death.

It seems like we will return to a world that was before and which we ... in our frenzied, confused, chaotic state took away in various acts of violation.  Mother Earth is healing because we have been castigated to go back to our rooms and learn our lessons.  There is no way to glorify the viciousness of this virus.  Yet we also brought these upon ourselves because kept pushing the envelope. We kept tampering and violating the natural order of things so that when we got the backlash we are made to be aware of something so significant: we are powerless. When nature hits back, we are mollified.

Now, in the duration of the quarantine, I step out of my garden each late morning to do an hour of exercise then look at the foliage.

I have lived here for more than thirty years and yet I have never spent so much time in the garden.  

I realized how beautiful the music that the wind chimes make ... or the rustling of the bamboo and palm leaves at that time of the day. Or how blue the skies have become. I see details about what has always been around me but never had the time nor the eyes to see, ears to hear.

I realize that this is a down time I may never have again (not unless another worldwide catastrophe of such proportions recurs) so I must make the most out of it.  I must finally learn to be still, to be quiet ... and to introspect rather than to plan.

Nothing happens by accident.  Everything is part of a much larger design. It is only when we look back at all this that we can realize how and why this had to be in order to become what we should really be.

And, no, I do not miss the traffic.  I am getting used to not being tense about deadlines and deliverables.  And that's a good thing.

DAY 12: ECQ

It has not yet even been two weeks and yet a lot of us have been  devastated.

Let me just enumerate my here and now on Day 12 of the Enhanced Community Quarantine. 

I am on self house arrest, as I would describe it. But I am on a roller coaster ride.

(1) I wake up to the news that a friend, one of the best character actors in the country, Menggie Cobarrubias --- died before 8:30 AM at the Asia Hospital.

Yesterday, a little about this time (as I am typing this), Menggie posted a cryptic message on his Facebook account.  It merely said "GOODBYE" but that was enough for friends to be triggered into reacting. 

I did not even know Menggie was confined --- nor that he has been sick since last week. Liza Dino-Seguerra posted a screen capture of their chat just last Sunday where Menggie was expressing his apprehension because of the drop in his platelet count after having a series of CBCsn He was already feverish for the past three.  He was to have his COVID test last Monday and I am not even sure if he ever got the results before he expired.

The members of the Directors Guild were taken aback by yesterday's shoutout: everybody loved working with Menggie.  Everybody LOVED Menggie.  All the directors were devastated when Joel Lamangan sent messages this morning that Menggie was gone.  Just like that.

I have known Menggie since my very first professional writing job sometime in the late 70s. He was one of the cast members of THE BOYS IN THE BAND IN TAGLISH. 

It was a dinner theater presentation at Hotel Mirador which ran for more than a year.  That was when I met the young Menggie --- and we had worked in various tv and film projects since then.  

Everyone who has worked with Menggie Cobarrubias has only one thing to say about him: he was one of the nicest, most generous and professional people you can ever work with.  There is so much warmth and compassion in his being ... that thinking about it right now just shatters my heart.

This virus took away Menggie from us. The man was an irreplaceable friend and treasure.


(2) It is different when you hear the viciousness of this plague in terms of statistics.  You hear about how many deaths there are in Italy ... or in Spain.  You hear about the rising numbers of casualties in New York City. You are shocked.

But the emotional impact happens when the people taken away are people you know ... or have met.  The plague is coming close to home.

The numerals in the headcount are meant to rattle ... but to give a face to the casualty is to squeeze the blood in your heart and, yes ... the oxygen from your lungs.

I remember the very young Greg Macasaet because he was the little brother of our Grade school and High schoolmate Romeo.  

Greg was also a Romeo as I think all his brothers are named Romeo.  But he was the little boy in short pants who was with Romy going out of the South Gate of De la Salle College then when there were still grade school classes in Taft Avenue.

I remember him precisely and was so surprised to find out that he grew up to be one of the most loved anesthesiologists at Manila Doctors Hospital.  

It broke my heart to think that he gave up his life like a soldier in the battlefield, never flinching nor denying the opportunity to be of service to the sick.  This was the little boy I used to see. And he left a hero.

One thing about these turn of events is that ... there are so many heroes rising from the common folks.  No, there are only a handfuls of impressive political leaders who are proving themselves as leaders.  The heroes are coming from the common folk ---- the doctors, the nurses, the health workers, the sanitation people, the soldiers, the guardians of peace.  The grocery clerks, the delivery men.  They have kept us alive and functioning in these terrible, terrible times.

They may not have their names etched in history books when people look back at the year 2020 --- but they are engraved in a more important place, the hearts of the people they have sacrificed so much for.

They do not have the great platforms not the opportunity to announce to the world what they have done.  But they do so much more. Much, much more than those who claim to be important, significant and indispensable.



(3) I do not even want to talk about that senator.

There has been enough venom spewed from my being about his shenanigans inasmuch as I sincerely want to understand his behavior.

I do acknowledge that there could have been panic when he discovered that he was positive of NCOV and that he may have most likely infected his wife who was about to bring their child to the world.  Any parent would go into a panic mode especially if the baby is ready to be born.

The insistence was there.  Ever the persistence. I can estimate the emotions. Or maybe it is outside the realm of my imagination to know how he and his wife felt knowing the urgency of a C Section operation to spare the baby from viral contamination.

That much I understand. That much we all understood.  

But what most of us do not grasp is the lack of empathy for the greater number of people who were exposed to the virus.  These were front liners --- exhausted doctors, nurses, medical attendants.  These were patients and their companions, worried about their conditions.  These were the hospital personnel. 

Would it have been asking too much to be honest?  Would it have mattered a lot if the cards were on the table and everybody knew what was going on ... and not only serving the interests of the privileged few.

Would there have been more complications if the hospital officials and the doctors in attendance were informed that the senator was already a PUI (Person Under Investigation) because he was not feeling well and he already took the test?

Was there really any controversy about the admittance to the hospital?

At this point, these are all proverbial waters flowing aimlessly under the bridge.  It no longer matters in the shaping of the conversation. It is all about honesty, transparency but most of all ...responsibility.

I would have taken that a panicking father-to-be would have done impossible and even damaging measures to protect his wife and child... but when the news that the same senator went shopping at one of the busiest and most popular wholesale supermarkets in the country, I was ... paralyzed with disbelief.  

This may have been under the time frame when he was already a PUI ... and yet despite all the calls for sobriety and immobility, this legislator was going around flaunting the virus while lining up to buy goodies in a grocery.

Sir, that is not only being selfish. It goes far beyond that.  It is called downright impunity and entitlement.

That is why for all that it is worth, I take my hat off to Senators Zubiri and Angara for having the clarity of mind and dignity of being to let the public know about the state of their health.

As elected officials, they OWE it to their constituents to make it clear where they are coming from and what state they are into.  To reiterate, a government post is that of a PUBLIC SERVANT ... and not someone who treats the public like they are servants.

And finally ...

(4) I have been taught the biggest lesson in these so many days of being confined inside my residence.

I have learned to appreciate so many things I used to take so much for granted.

Like being able to go to the supermarket to buy my groceries without any consideration of time, distance and exposure to unwanted germs.

Like being able to step out of my house and walk my dog, then walk around the premises just to see how your neighbors live or how the streets look at a certain time of the day.

Like being able to go the gym any time I choose to go and spend about two hours there, meeting other gym rats and taking the spinning class.

Like being able to go to a restaurant, buy your take-out or sit and have a bowl of ramen.

Like being able to shake hands with people, hug people and laugh without worrying if the other party is infected.

Like not having to wash your hands every thirty minutes for twenty seconds (one-two-three-four-five ...) or dousing a generous amount of alcohol-based hand gel to insure that you are ok.

Like not turning completely PARANOID each time you accidentally touching your face, terrified at the thought that that was critical moment that could have damaged or punctuated your life.

We are being taught a lot of lessons here.  

And we are going to emerge from all this ... changed and no longer indifferent.

We see where we need to change.  And seeing this is not enough. 
It is time to move.

DAY 11 ; ECQ

The eleventh day.  Not yet talking to plants and hearing them answer you back.  My dog has started to shy away from me: I think she is beginning to feel I am harassing her. I guess it is just too much company from her human.

And I was content listening to the Motown sound of my youth while trying to create the semblance of a workout in the mornings.

I was determined to have a relatively quiet day writing until this whole thing about the senator blew right out of the platforms of social media.

More deadly than the virus is the toxic response of netizens to the politicos.  Not that the philosophers and the fools are doing anything that they haven't been doing for the past too many years, but there is a difference when the general population is on self-house arrest.  Bluntly put: all eyes are on the computer monitors and the smartphones.  

Everyone is being updated by Twitter, bedazzled by Instagram stories and Facebook Live.  There are also such a great number doing their own versions of Tik Tok so much so that the platform was so overwhelmed to donate a sizable amount to various charitable causes.

For every Vico Sotto, Marcy Teodoro, Ishko Moreno or even that 23 year old mayor from Alaminos, Pangasinan --- Arth Bryan Celeste --- there is this, uh, menagerie of politicians who have quite succeeded in turning this Coronavirus season into the early ritual of self-crucifixion.

These include:

(a) Blundering politicians who just cannot do anything right in front or behind the eye of the public so much so that every move they make seems to dig a deeper and deeper grave for the future aspirations in governance.

(b)Local unit officials who took the directive of self-quarantine too seriously that they decided to migrate to a completely different dimension, leaving their constituents to fend for themselves and use the proper of faith and prayer for survival. In other words, they have practiced the art of "creative disappearance" so that their presence has ceased from even being virtual.  They have turned completely invisible ... for the sake of their health.

(c) Men and women of privilege who used their position, clout, influence, family name --- or even affiliation to the sanitation officers of the Palace --- to get ahead of everybody.  There is nothing new about this either: My Golly naman ...dis is da Pilipins. It is already integral in Philippine culture raw to practice the art of palakasan, singilan ng utang na loob at pakikisama. So if the politicians get to be ahead of the line in the COVid19 testing, it is only because it is their Divine Right, di ba?  As my Lola would put it, Por que estamos en poder?

Cabin fever apparently shortens the patience of people and netizens have become more unforgiving. Or maybe because people have just had it, so that now in critical times --- when uncertainty clouds every decision to be made --- when even going out to buy sitaw in the grocery can be a question of life or death  (that, of course, is an over dramatizing), then you just can't invest that much tolerance for ngitngit lines like:

(a) "Pasensiya na po. Tao lang."
(b) "Para yon lang?"
(c) "Kilala mo ba kung sino ako? Eh, sino ka ba?"
or the worst of them all ...
(d) "Eh, di wow ..."

You cannot take that especially from people you have elected into office, get their jollies from the taxes that you pay ... then suddenly treat their constituents like they owe them a favor. Not in such terrible times like these ... when people want to be assured, to be led, to be given guidance as to what is best to do next, they do a Houdini act, evaporating from the heart of the problem and perhaps condensing when all this over, celebrating their imaginary leadership.

I had my share of laughs looking at the memes and the videos of mayors being ganged up by netizens.  I had my fill of the speed and genius of the Filipino as humorists when they concoct memes in a record ten minutes flat.  Suddenly posted, then shared, infesting the worldwide net in its spectrum of platforms ... faster than the Coronavirus.

But some things are ANYTHING but funny.

Like the stunt that this senator did. 

I am still trying to figure out what could have been running in his head when he actually went to the hospital to accompany his wife who is about to have give birth via C-Section.

The senator was already symptomatic, having been tested for the virus a few days earlier.  He was very well aware that he needed to be in house quarantine and that in the event that he is identified as virus-positive, then he would be infecting not only the doctors and nurses in the hospital ... but also the other patients, their chaperones and other individuals who may be in his area regardless of number or density.

Was it not the President himself who insisted that everyone stay home, practice personal discretion and discipline in order to defeat the infection?  Was it not the message from Malacanang that night when all this was happening and all the while there was a member of the Upper House breaking the protocol and endangering the lives of the frontliners?

To put this bluntly: the scenario has turned surreal.

More than the virus ... or maybe after the virus, I worry about the aftermath.

The aftermath in terms of economics.  The aftermath in terms of what will be left of the world after it goes on a freeze mode for weeks ... hopefully not months.  The aftermath in terms of the damage that has been created in the moral fabric of governance has been so defined. Because critical times like these show the stuff that people are made of ... and where the best and worst in people are displayed in public so blatantly and even shamelessly.

DAY 10: ECQ

Last night, with the hope of amusement, I ended up terrorizing myself before I went to bed.

I watched the movie CONTAGION, starring Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow to frighten myself into utmost restlessness.  I have already seen this film of Steven Soderbergh years ago.  

When I watched this movie nine years ago, it was a curious experience: a virus outbreak coming out of chance because (spoiler alert) a displaced bat provided material for a hungry piglet to eat resulting to a mutant product that was transferred to humans.  \

Why?  Because somebody did not wash his hands.  Well, for the record, Patient 1 contracted her sickness from Macau ... not Wuhan. 

I have been "terrorized" by similar tropes in all these zombie and dystopian movies and tv shows of late, from WORLD WAR Z to TRAIN TO BUSAN.  And if you have read Stephen King's phone book thick novel about Armageddon entitled THE STAND, then you would have identified "the flu" as the culprit to end a substantial population of the planet earth for the final battle between Good and Evil to take place.

Bill Gates talked about this in his TED TALKS five years ago but nobody listened.  Or took it all too seriously.

We were still stuck to the idea that nuclear weapons will decimate a substantial population of the earth --- so we had our eyes on all these Big Bosses running Powerful Nations play their Game of Thrones.  Gates was right: the artillery did not involve guided or long distance missiles.  The game changer were microbes.

The resolutions in movies about biological tragedies come handy.  Somewhere along the line, the heroes win ... the martyrs are honored, bravery is celebrated.  Just like in real life.  Yet real life is not like movies.  The answers do not come conveniently and convincingly in Act III when the story reaches its end and the conclusion is reached, the lesson illustrated.

Vaccines are not discovered, tested and developed within the span of one hundred minutes running time of a full length feature.  They take much, much longer ... involving the loss of more lives by the day.

Real life is belonging to the "present progressive"--- when each morning you wake up, realizing that it will be more of the same day in house arrest because of the Enhanced Community Quarantine implemented by the government.  

Where I live there is a "total lock down" added to the fact that the city has decided to go on a twenty-four hour curfew. That is a euphemism for a "really, really total lock down." Which means I cannot even walk my dog or simply move elsewhere to another location to change the scenery. Never in my so many years of human existence have I felt so helpless ... and useless.

Yes, maybe I can use the time to read the books I bought, write the scripts I have always wanted to write ... or even go back drawing, using the tomes of coloring books I have purchased with the pencils, ballpoint pens.  I try to understand why I cannot focus ... but that does not take much thought to decipher.

At this point, there is no certainty. I no longer know what to expect. 

Not only are we not sure if the 12 April deadline will truly find us free from our quarantine ... but the point of the matter is that as I write this, the epidemic has not peaked in the country.

We do not know if we are oh so lucky to only run third in the region behind Thailand and Indonesia with a little over five hundred confirmed cases and not (yet)forty casualties.  But we are not sure if these are the real numbers because there is no mass testing being done. Yet.  We hope it remains that way ... and that we do not surge in number like what is happening in key cities found in other countries.

We can never be sure when this will be over.  

We do not know what kind of world to expect when this pandemic settles down and becomes part of our traumatic collective memory.

There are too many lessons being taught ... and we are not sure either if people are getting the message about the people they have chosen to put into power, what they are doing ... and what could have been done.  Better yet, we ... no, I ... can only pray that people do see beyond speeches, gimmickry and popularity the next time they install someone in a position of power and responsibility.

Amidst the uncertainty, there are heroes being created.  There are natural born leaders being identified.

There are also the scumbags, douche bags, imbeciles, cretins and banshees who are as toxic as the NCov19 and who we hope through the wisdom if not the anger of the people can eradicated the next time the Filipinos go to the polls.

In the meantime, let us focus on the here and now.  There are no convenient short cut conclusions to the narrative that the NCov19 is creating.  It is a constant unfolding ... and heartbreak.

Unlike CONTAGION or even TRAIN TO BUSAN, real life has no closing credits.   Just the next chapter called the following day. And clinging onto the ship of life with a rope called hope.