DAY 25: ECQ

This morning somebody posted a video of an early market scene in one of the cities of Metro Manila.

A day or two before, somebody also posted a photograph of a group of men staging an informal cockfight on the middle of a narrow street to wile their time away.

From what I gathered, despite all the warnings and instructions given by the government there are still people, our fellow countrymen, who prefer to ignore these procedures of social distancing.  They actually think that the Enhanced Community Quarantine now dreadfully known as ECQ is just a euphemism for One Big Summer Holiday.

Scenes and reports like these makes one sigh with utmost frustration knowing that as long as these violations take place the degree of exposure and infection will not taper.  There is no way you can flatten the curve unless everybody behaves as a community and sees the importance of keeping away from each other.  

But the situation does not come across some people that way: they think that by maliciously, intentionally and deliberately going against the rules they are proving to others that they are oh-so-astig and that they could not give a damn about demands for conformity.

O di sige. When these same people are gasping for breath, clawing for air with their loved ones weeping in what Eugene Domingo called TV patrol hysterical crying, then they will scream for our help because they are the most pinakakawawa. 

In reality, they are.  

They are kawawa because they have been pre-conditioned to think that way. 

One time in a class, we were discussing about what media has done to literally misshapen the mindset of the Pinoys into thinking in a specific pa-victim mentality.  Oh, we can trace it all the way back to our misinterpretation of romantic agony brought about by Catholicism.  Nothing new here: the same ideas Dr. Rizal was talking about in his two best selling novels which are still as relevant today as it was more than a century ago.  As long as you condition people to think small, they will remain passive, reactive and never introspective.

We should really stop making poverty as an excuse either.  

Economic deprivation indeed incapacitates people from greater opportunities and therefore a far better future and life.  The more we should not foster a culture of mendicancy but that of empowerment.

We have our share of success stories ... and I am not referring to the telenovela martyr heroine who will be saved not by her own ingenuity and determination but because fate will play an important role and give her a prince ( who is rich, La Salle or Ateneo bred, will fight for her against all odds and bring her to that Neverland called Ever After).  The real life success stories involve struggle, hard work and the ability to transcend that embedded mindset that mahirap ako kaya hanggang dito lang ako.  The real success stories are those who worked hard and were therefore rewarded for their effort and their vision.

The true success stories came from those empowered not despite but because of poverty.  They were given an opportunity to regain their dignity by proving (not only to others) but to themselves that they were no different --- that they were capable of thinking and affecting the lives of others not only of themselves.

What irks me about scenes like the men staging a cockfight at midday when they have been told to stay home ... or women hanging around wearing masks but gossiping outside their homes while holding their walis tingtings or carrying their kids ... or people going to the wet market with a devil may care attitude about the pandemic in progress ... is that this is ignorance mixed with a tinge of entitlement.  Eh, mahirap ako, ano?  Kailangan ko ito ... hindi katulad nyong may kaya.

It has got nothing to do with poverty.  It has got everything to do with how one looks at oneself relative to his significance in society.

It is ignorance because these people were never really told about how dangerous it is not only for themselves but also for their loved ones to be out in the streets when it is unnecessary to do so.  It is ignorance because they think that the COVID19 is just another thing you see on TV and does not exist in real life because they have diminished everything they see on the tube as entertainment and not as a narration of facts and situation.

In so many ways we have fostered this kind of thinking.  We have perpetuated this delineation through the way we either romanticize poverty or miscalculate its true social significance.

Those who deliberately violate the rules do so because they are astig.  There is a certain perk to being pasaway because you rebel like some overgrown, over aged juvenile because you want to show to the world that despite your station in life, you've got the guts and the balls.  OK, fine. There must be a demented kind of honor in being the most feared thug in your baranggay --- and some air of brotherhood in collective machismo.  If it can happen in a golf course, then it can also happen in a callejon.

The thing of it is we have also accepted if not encouraged the idea that mas magaling yung mautak kaysa sa matalino ( The resourceful is better than the mere intelligent.).  Better yet we have somehow nurtured the idea that mas masarap makaisa kaysa maisahan ( It is better to get one over another than to be in the losing end).  Any nationality would shun the very idea of being outwitted --- but a Filipino will take it all too personally if he is naisahan or nalamangan.  

( Funny but once in a discussion among friends about the Filipinos' preoccupation for lamangan, we correlated this with the unsavory practice of takaw mata.  Of course, we know that that is not an exclusive Filipino trait --- as evidenced by another race that seemed to have superseded us in creating utmost sacrilege during buffets.  Yet we cannot help watch the behavior of our kababayans in any fiesta or gathering where a lechon is being chopped and an entire squad is on the sidelines ready to attack.

Once we actually saw takaw mata  and lamangan in action when a whole platoon literally assaulted a freshly mutilated roasted big and started grabbing skin, flesh and even bone while there was a wild scramble as to who was going to get the head and the tail.  We watched mesmerized and stupefied realizing that this was evident social doctrine in action.)

So there is something about being pasaway to enable you to feel mautak and nakaisa.  While the rest of civilized mankind has opted to stay in the safety of their homes, the pabidas will prove their Alpha status by flaunting their presence out on the streets --- some even boozing despite the alcohol ban. (We can all give a collective sigh here.)  Why? Because they want to prove to the world that they can do it.

I do understand why there is a need for the wet market to remain open.  There is an imperative to provide food and the necessities of the larger number of our citizenry.  But this time it should be the responsibility of the city elders to insure that discipline is followed and that certain protocols are met.  That was why it thrilled me greatly to see those men who were mounting cockfights in jail because they were apprehended for their brazen disobedience of the law.

It amused me to see a video of young men all paraded on a road at night because they were caught drinking and turning the entire quarantine procedure into a mockery.

Yes, we need to crack the whip at times if only to make sure people realize that we mean business without violating rights and understanding the needs of others.  OK, sure ... at the start of the quarantine, there was much kaguluhan because people were not prepared for the lockdown ... no, let me correct that: even the government was not ready to meet the chaos of transportation, check points etcetera because this was a totally new experience.

But now that we are more than three weeks into the exercise, let's set things straight.  Regardless of class or social station, everybody stays at home.

That is non-negotiable.  We want this quarantine to end and that can only happen if we all behave.