Mid-day of 30th of January, year 2020.
Hazy clouds, busy streets, and preoccupied people. “Bakit sila naka face
mask?” replied by the street beggar, barely over 12 years old, asking for
spare change. “Ah, eh, laganap na kasi ‘yung virus ngayon” I responded.
“Ano pong virus?”, his eyes
glimpsed pure innocence. He was wearing a tattered Cardo Dalisay sleeveless top
and a black pair of shorts, on his left hand, he was holding spare changes he
received from the past 5 hours. Admittedly, I was confused by his question for
the news spread like wildfire recently. He should had been informed about it
already. Everyone was seen with strides of fear, yet this kid was as pure as a
blank canvass. “Corona virus po”, before brushing my shoulders and continued
walking. As I was traversing Padre Noval street, the entire road served
as an apocalyptic film setting, everyone was seen wearing the templated blue
surgical face masks, I did not remember everyone had laboratory activities
during that time. It fascinated me to see this in real life due to my fondness
of watching suspense-thriller movies when I was 9 years old but currently
petrified for, I did not imagine this from becoming a reality. “Oh, ba’t ‘di
ka naka-mask?” a friend of mine from a different strand asked “ ‘Di
nagmamask ‘yan kasi siya mismo ‘yung coronavirus” responded by my other friend
then the whole circle laughed. It may appear as a comedic banter for them, but
it alarmed me to my core. As I approached the nearest gate to UST, I had
observed that all convenience stores near my school ran out of hand-sanitizers
and masks. Bond papers on front of their doors were clearly written with
“masks/alcohol no stocks”. For the fortunate few, they bought multiple boxes of
face-mouth coverings and disinfectants and sold them at higher prices – an
economic opportunity. They were retailing individuals mask for 7 or 8 pesos –
in contrary to P2 in drugstores, and out of desperation to aid safety, some
people purchased them – undoubtfully and willingly. With this, how could the
12-year-old street beggar could protect himself amidst a pandemic, without
information, resources, connections and proper precautionary measures being
taken into consideration? Is safety just for the privileged?
7 PM, 30th of January, year 2020. Blurry city lights, roaring vehicles,
and preoccupied people. “More novel coronavirus cases in the Philippines are
likely to be confirmed in the next couple of days as the two-week incubation
period of the disease passes” an article from CNN Philippines stated. “We are
expecting more cases in the following weeks, and months, for now, stay away
from crowded places to prevent further complications”. This alone disturbed me
while I was reading on the way home, taking the LRT-1 as a main commuting
medium. At the end of the article, fearfully as I learned that the virus came
from Wuhan, China, a city of 11 million people and it was believed to have
originated in animals and was transmitted to humans by contact with animals at
a live market. Some Chinese people have this tradition, or a leisure-activity
where they eat raw variants of food, most specially animals, like bats, for own
satisfactions. They even upload it on social media – accessible for anyone to
see. The internet speculated that this had been the origin of the virus. It is
yet to be found the logical explanation behind the source. Ever since the
outbreak had reached worldwide perimeters, countries like United States,
Australia, Macao, Singapore, Sri Lanka to name a few, have already banned
travels coming from Wuhan, China – the place where the virus originated. Such
banning acted as one of the safety measures to ensure further preventive
exacerbation to the virus’ spread. The State Department of US had encouraged
Americans in China to reassess leaving; “The Department of State has requested
that all non-essential U.S. government personnel defer travel to China in light
of the novel coronavirus”, the Level 4 Travel Advisory said. These countries
also acknowledged and inferred from the World Health Organization’s declaration
earlier in the day that the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak was a global public
health emergency, thus ensure rapid calls for state emergencies. Nearby
Southeast-Asian countries have already been banning flights from China, yet the
Philippines was left undisturbed. Malacañang saw the insignificance of banning
Chinese – even those from Wuhan – from entering the Philippines even as the
Bureau of Immigration (BI) had suspended the issuance of visa-upon-arrival
(VUA) to Chinese Nationals. This fact raged the Filipino people bombarding
Twitter, an online platform, with tweets “Hihintayin pa ba natin magkaroon
tayo ng virus bago sila mag-ban?”, “Busy pa ata si Digong sa US Visa ni Bato”,
“Patuluyin na lang natin sa Malacanang yan mga Chinese na yan” to name few.
Senator Bong Go, posted a public statement that he is willing to engage a
discourse with President Duterte about the highly anticipated flight-ban to
ensure safety. “Kakausapin ko po si Pangulong Duterte” Go responded.
With how unrestrictive and liberated the Philippines handles the current issue.
it’s safe to say that we are in an evacuation mode for the people in China.
Facebook users jokingly posted memes about how open arms the Philippines is for
its nearby country. “Pasok mga suki, tara na!” one netizen quoted.
Despite of such intensified anger in Social Media echoed by the Filipino
people, flights from China going to our land have been increasing daily, thus
justified, evacuation mode. On another hand, Filipinos on the streets were
furious about any Chinese lingering or simply strolling Philippines’ lands,
namely be buying groceries, going to schools, or simply commuting. “Every
Chinese is infected with virus” a motto some Filipinos embed to mind, this had
caused chaos and extreme racism to the counterpart. One Filipino-Chinese
already expressed his dejected response about how Filipinos in his office
treated him, “not all Chinese have the coronavirus, we all just want to be
safe”, he said. Amidst all race, and health predicaments. Is the Philippines
ready to face and conquer a global health emergency?
3:46pm, 31st of January, year 2020. Dark clouds, bumbling media, and
incompetent government. “6 cases of coronavirus in Japan. No panic , no disgust
, no hate, No racism here.” Homer Yulo (@duren) tweeted, and “We have 7 cases
in Australia, but everyone remains calm and alert, and those in government
genuinely work together to address the problem. Sa Pilipinas, kasalanan ni
Duterte lahat”, Hey (@bisdak_si_ako)” quoted were some tweets put Twitter in
full-disordered manner. In contrary to nearby and far countries, the
Philippines is not ready to face such pandemic. First world countries have
optimum and affordable healthcare systems and great governances in comparison
to the Philippines, our country has inadequate medical facilities, unfunded
research department, and weak, expensive and bad healthcare system, not to
mention inefficiency of governance. We are responding to an ill-prepared
government, and they are responding to much- more competent ones with great
social services - an unfair comparison. Their tweets reeked extreme privileges.
Majority of the Filipinos couldn’t afford to get sick. Street beggars, farmers,
construction, fast-food, and factory workers, PUV and PUJ drivers, and the
lower minority. They do not have access to proper healthcare due to
insufficient finances, most of their groups do not even allocate medical
expenses for either check-up or emergency purposes in their weekly, monthly,
and yearly budgets. Some do not even allocate at all. How much more if they got
infected? The urban and rural poor are going to be hit big time during these
momentums, they do not have access to vitamins and clean water, their immune
systems are already compromised due to unsafe surroundings, and some may not be
able to purchase face masks, or disinfectants. Indeed, safety is for the
privileged. Furthermore, there is a prevalent scare amongst individuals around
the country, most specifically focused on the University Belt area, where
majority of the students, and a percentage of workers execute their daily
livings here. There is trauma to everywhere we go, there is a constant need for
face masks, alcohols, disinfectants, and strong immune systems. There is a
constant doubt whether we would pass another day safely or the day would pass
us lethally. It’s a matter of 50-50. In addition to this, Generation Z
Filipinos amplified their voices more about the Wuhan flight banning, it has
been reiterated multiple times, yet the Philippine President isn’t convinced
about it - talk about a different level of apathy. Our government is not doing
anything dominantly beneficial to our country aside from maintaining diplomatic
relationships to China. I think, a trade between healthy economic ties to a
country infected with a virus and the easy access for their citizens to fly and
serve this country as an alternative residence is not a fair trade. It
compromises the health of the Filipino people, living inside the Philippines–
where we do not have anything to address the virus at its core, just band-aid
solutions. Would we still allow this government to treat us, their citizens, as
last priorities?
5 AM, 1st of February, year 2020. Chaotic cities, jeopardized health,
and a gloomy Philippines. The Department of Health advices everyone to comply
with these precautionary actions. The wearing of a medical mask is one of the
prevention measures to limit spread of certain respiratory diseases, including
2019-nCoV, in affected areas. However, the use of a mask alone is insufficient
to provide the adequate level of protection and other equally relevant measures
should be adopted. If masks are to be used, this measure must be combined with
hand hygiene and other IPC measures to prevent the human-to-human transmission
of 2019. nCoV. Wearing medical masks when not indicated may cause unnecessary
cost, procurement burden and create a false sense of security that can lead to
neglecting other essential measures such as hand hygiene practices.
Furthermore, using a mask incorrectly may hamper its effectiveness to reduce
the risk of transmission. We should avoid agglomerations and frequency of
closed crowded spaces, perform hand hygiene frequently, if coughing or sneezing
cover nose and mouth with flexed elbow or paper tissue, dispose of tissue
immediately after use and perform hand hygiene, and lastly, a medical mask is
not required as no evidence is available on its usefulness to protect non-sick
persons. But, as often raised up, prevention is better than cure. As well, we
should control all entry of sources for the virus, most specially airline
transactions. Our country has a weaker health system – policies and
technologies are not a par with more developed countries, we are not equipped
to quickly diagnose and manage cases. Most Filipinos cannot afford to get sick,
because of several socioeconomic factors. Exposing the population to this
highly contagious virus puts many socioeconomically challenged citizens at
risk. If the entry of this virus would be easy, the immuno-compromised
population would play a significant role to the play, not everyone who gets the
virus is able to mount a good immune response. There may be loopholes to how we
address the pandemic. Avoiding public places, and preventing oneself to commute
are two unrealistic approaches, most of the Filipinos do not have the luxury to
own their own cars – hence they are confined in riding the Philippine public
transport system, students are sandwiched between constrictive spaces in their
classrooms, not to mention these students do not share the same residences
vicinitiy, some are even coming far for education, and street beggars,
construction, fast food workers, and the like established their occupations to
the most populated places to date. They earn in the dirtiest and busiest
streets in the Metro, where if they were required to leave, they would have no
income, no money to send for their families, and to the constant reminder of
wearing masks and purchasing alcohols, what about those living on the streets’
pavements, street-sweepers, and the lowest of the lowest groups. If the
feasibility of stretching one’s budget to survive a day no longer supports
additional expenses, how could they protect themselves from this pandemic? We
could just let them suffer due to their inadequate resources. Our government
should do something for their people. Distribute face masks and hand sanitizers,
offering free medical services, and consultations, and giving vitamins to the
people out of charge are some avenues they could engage into. The Philippine
Government should be for the Filipino people, not for themselves who are them
serving, solely. As well, we should avoid an environment of extreme race
discrimination against Chinese individuals. The Chinese race DNA is not a
direct carrier of nCoV virus. We must inculcate to mind that these people want
what we want, a safe environment to live in. Belittling and discriminating do
not do any good, rather extensively putting fuel to a bonfire. We must end
these predicaments by means of connecting and lending hands to individuals in
need. Now is the right time to become united against a pandemic considered as a
global emergency. Now is the right time to act.
2PM, 1st of February, year 2020. Last track. We must know that this
virus is treatable and not beyond reach of science. Despite of our failing
government, we must help one another in combatting this pandemic by following
and disseminating proper information to all concerned individuals around us.
Let us not take this time as a platform to belittle races. As humans, we must
be humane to all approaches we would be doing in the succeeding times. This is
not survival of the fittest, but this is about making everyone fit to survive.
As I saw the street beggar, barely 12 years old, who had worn a tattered Cardo
Dalisay sleeveless top, and a pair of shorts, I gave him a facemask and a hand
sanitizer. And as I am traversing Padre Noval street, I realized that in a country where weaponry
and violence seek much importance than a budget for calamity, in a country
where social media acts as a platform for stupidity rather than a stage of
information. In a country where epidemics, mass paranoia, and volcanic
eruptions are dubbed as bizarrely comedic, in a country that serves its
investors more than its citizens, in a country entrapped in a bubble of
ignorance and apathy, and in a country, I call my home. I conclude that,
Safety is for the privileged.
"Safety is for the privileged" was an essay about how one's class takes place in achieving safety and security. It was originally written by Herold Buenconsejo as an entry to the 2020 Senior High School Week's Essay Writing Competition of University of Santo Tomas.
