Just before the Quarantine

(Part of an ongoing account started on March 13, 2020 of how the spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.)

We make plans to check on Nanay and her needs before the general community quarantine over Metro Manila is implemented by midnight. Trips outside the province are prohibited during the quarantine so we know that after today, we will be unable to go to her place in Antipolo City, which is located in the Province of Rizal.

However, we’ve already asked a plumber to come over and do repair work so we wait until that’s done before we leave. We set out mid-afternoon and stop by a restaurant along C5 to buy food that we can share with Nanay. The parking lot is half-empty and only a few patrons are inside. We go on the road and round a bend, only to come head to head with the giant parking lot that is the Ortigas Ave. extension.

We crawl inch by inch, not really making much headway in the traffic created by the huge number of people evidently wanting to leave the metro before the quarantine takes effect. Finally, hubby gives up and calls Nanay, apologizing that we have to turn around and head back home since we would likely get caught in Antipolo when the quarantine takes effect. She understands, as most mothers do.

Tired but still intent on catching the news, I stay up and am alarmed when my best friend calls from Cebu. Arlene, a mutual friend from abroad, is stranded in Manila.  Much as I want to immediately rush to her aid, I know I have to get the consensus of hubby and daughter, who are both in dreamland. I vow to call Arlene in the morning.

Life, as I don't know it

Photo borrowed from Heywood Hospital  

The threat of the corona virus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) first became real to me when it hit close to home or rather, the Greenhills shopping center in San Juan, Metro Manila which I was thinking of visiting to have my daughter’s drawing tablet repaired.

A 62-year-old male who frequented a Muslim prayer hall in the shopping center had contracted COVID-19 on March 5. He was the first case of local transmission in the Philippines, having no history of travel prior to contracting the disease. His wife followed suit on March 7. This convinced me that the virus had found its way to Metro Manila. It was no longer something in Wuhan, China. I remember thinking, “It’s real and it’s here in Greenhills.”

Of course, I had followed reports of Filipinos repatriated from Wuhan, China and quarantined at the New Clark City in Capas, Tarlac last February, but did not think much of it because they were all eventually released after they were cleared of the disease.

But the sight of a virtually empty Greenhills shopping mall unsettled me. Then the cases of local transmission started to rise, causing President Rodrigo Duterte to formally declare a state of public health emergency in the Philippines on March 9. He also suspended all classes in public and private schools in Metro Manila from March 10 to 14, 2020.

My daughter, who initially rejoiced at the idea of not having classes, started to worry. Her school cancelled the last term tests, announcing that the students’ final grades would be based on their class standing. Like most students, she had been banking on doing well in the finals to further pull up her grades. Also, she and her friends had agreed to meet at our house after the last exam scheduled on March 13 for a Dungeons and Dragons session, which was always fun.

Nonetheless, she remained optimistic that she would see her schoolmates during the practices scheduled for their moving-up ceremony the week after. But even that did not materialize. Government’s advice to offices and institutions to refrain from holding activities that encouraged mass gatherings prompted her school to cancel the moving-up ceremony altogether.

I think this was the tipping point for me since we were now directly affected. I wondered when her grades would be released, if they were good enough for entry to the school she had chosen for senior high school, and when we could enroll her for Grade 11. The silence and the uncertainty unnerved me.

Then I saw a news report showing the cast of popular noontime show “Eat Bulaga” performing to an empty studio on March 10.  Studio management had decided not to open its doors to a live audience in an effort "to help prevent the spread of the virus and to ensure the health and safety of its talent, staff, crew, and members of its audience."

Given the fast pace of events and everything that has happened since then, I have decided to make an account of how the rapid spread of COVID-19 in our country and our government’s response has affected our lives.

This is not an attempt to document medical or technical milestones, but rather just an account of how an ordinary, middle-income family is reacting to a new way of life brought about by the lockdown.

Life, as I know it, has changed. Fast. Drastically. I am starting on March 14, 2020 hours before the general community quarantine or partial lockdown of Metro Manila announced by Duterte takes effect. (To be continued)

“Hearting” birthday greetings

I turned 52 in October 2019. This statement should please my best friend, who always objects to my propensity to declare myself the age I am for the year even if my birthday is still months away. She is all for accuracy especially because she is a year younger and has no wish to "advance" her age. 

This year, I thought I would remove my birth date from Facebook (FB) because I am really more a lurker, just happy to "heart" or “like” the nice things that are happening to people, congratulate them on their milestones and commiserate when they lose someone dear to them.

At this age, I am also losing a lot of people I know, even those my age. I figured I might just as well begin the phase-out on social media.

But then my birthday came around and sister started the ball rolling by greeting me on FB. Someone picked up on that and then a friend of that someone and soon enough, I have a lot of birthday greetings in just minutes.

I am the type of person who wants to respond to each and every greeting, but when you’re with actual, physical people celebrating your birthday early in the morning with breakfast, you can’t. You can’t ignore them because you’re on your phone.

So you put it off and soon enough you’re going out and real life dictates that you spend the time doing this and that so that you can actually leave the house even as you sneak in a "heart" here and there to show the FB greeter that you love their message, which you really do except that you can’t be physically present but on the phone with the people who want to celebrate your birthday with you.

So you content yourself with “hearting” their greeting for the moment, all the time feeling uncomfortable that you cannot thank them properly.

I have only 660 FB friends. I cannot imagine how it is for those who have thousands.

But then again, I am 52 and considered old school. Maybe in this age of social media, a “heart” is really just enough.

Of course, I say this after I have replied, singly or in groups, to the birthday greetings that I “hearted” a while back.