FEATURES | The Ship Is Sinking!
Drowning in Corona’s Waves
By: Danna Gonsalves and Pauline Magsino
The panic came in waves.
At first, it was only confusion. Collectively, Filipinos found that they would not have enough of the headspace needed to comprehend the possible implications of what their incompetent government, paired with the looming global pandemic, could bring. As the sudden stream of news reports and presidential conferences flooded their screens, Filipino citizens stared in wonder, taking it all in. At first, it was mere confusion — and then the outrage followed.
The suspension of school, businesses, and daily transportation activities left Filipinos in awe. For those privileged enough to get by sans work for several weeks, the opportunity to stay at home was welcomed as a glorious vacation. Yet, for others, the dawn of community quarantine was, and still is, regarded as one very long and dark tunnel they are forced to cross through. During the first few weeks of the pandemic, many questions were left unanswered by the government. How will families get by without work? Will the government provide aid? Who is allowed to go out? Will those overseas be able to return home to their loved ones? In anticipation, the citizens watched as their rulers groped around for answers.
The first wave came, and the country began to capsize…
The economy started to crumble. One would think that the obvious solution to a worldwide health threat would have been to strengthen the power of the medical, health, and services sector. Yet apparently, it was not only the citizens left confused by this first wave. Despite the imposition of tax reform laws years before, the national government found that it had no more money within its pockets left to spend. An accumulation of what would soon become a trillion-dollar national debt began to arise, while virtually all businesses began to either suspend or shut down momentarily. A national loan far bigger than what the late President Ferdinand Marcos had created during his time now resides on the shoulders of generations of future Filipinos to come. It is pure irony to accumulate such a large debt in a time where unemployment rates have also reached record-high levels in the country. In fact, with the exception of those services that have been deemed as absolutely essential, most city centers of industry and commerce have been closed up, as they are considered to be “high-risk areas” in this time of COVID.
Even without the presence of mass testing, COVID-19 cases continue to gradually rise, while daily wage earners and front-liners persist to work. Stricter quarantine protocols were thus enforced to keep the virus at bay. To this day, military men still run the streets to arrest anybody who dares disobey social distancing rules, with only themselves as the exception. The constant stream of news reports have changed its flow since; they are no longer exposés on the coronavirus but rather, accounts of citizens who were either forcibly dispersed or had endured walking for several kilometres. Because the panic was fresh and the confusion strong, most citizens were torn between two emotions during these times: anger and fear. Those who were angry either turned their arrows to the government or to their fellow underprivileged citizens, while those who were filled with fear remained quiet and stayed within the confines of their homes. President Duterte soon found the need to provide a solution for the state’s calamity, and just as it has always been under President Duterte’s regime, his solution was bound to make the poor suffer. It was not soon after that his order to “shoot them dead!” left the public’s ears ringing.
The second wave came, and the Filipinos went gasping for air and relief…
The panic has settled in. People are now looking at real threats to health and safety born out of the government’s complacency. It is too late; the fear, along with the virus, had spread like wildfire.
Government aid has proved to be insufficient to poor communities with no stable sources of income to potentially set them up for months. Working from home is a luxury most cannot afford, not with its demand to purchase things that are essentially incapable of silencing stomach rumbles.
Burdened with the country’s weak defenses, the poor and the essential workers are therefore forced to put their minds in a state of war and their lives in the front lines every time they leave their homes to work. The risks of boarding trains and public buses, the several inspections they have to go through, the fear of being attacked, and the panic from discovering that somehow they might have contracted the disease are almost too much to bear. Going hungry is as real as these worries, and sometimes it is far too familiar to simply ignore.
The harsh system provides no assurance. In fact, it creates a struggle for millions of families, particularly those with jeepney drivers as breadwinners who rely on what little they earn from driving almost 10 hours a day. Despite heeding the call to innovate, these poor drivers are often ridiculed on social media for using carton boxes and other scraps to divide their passengers and promote social distancing. Worse, they are denied the permission to operate. This decision has fueled rallies and organized protests. It was already hard to get by in their ‘normal’ setup, and it is even more so now that they are being pushed to a corner; holding their placards and cardboard signs in a desperate plea for some assistance. Yet, all that has been offered are handcuffs; there are no days to work, just nights to spend in jail.
It is clear that without mass testing and an overall respect for fundamental rights, the situation is bound to worsen. The little spaces the people have fought for will soon be too cramped until there’s hardly any room left to breathe in.
The third wave came, and everyone started to drown.
Anxiety has morphed into a magnetic force that pulls bodies underwater just to be swallowed whole. The future has become riddled with uncertainty, and everyday, the journey to the surface feels longer. Those drowning are left with one singular and desperate thought:
“How long will we struggle against getting sucked in completely until we are reminded of the taste of air?”
Only recently, the length of the quarantine period turned 100. One hundred days. Although it didn’t exactly come off as a shock, Filipinos are still disappointed with how things have turned out, now that the government is manning the vehicle. The windows are not tinted: anyone can see right through their tricks and lies. The call for mass testing, one that could ultimately give purpose to this long quarantine, is continuously being sidetracked by “urgent” bills and so-called necessary renaming of airports. These distraction tactics are employed to deflect public attention and prevent the people from making a fuss about the vanishing trillion-dollar debt and the complete absence of a concrete plan. Thus far, there is still no transparency behind projects designed to handle the pandemic and allocate support to those on the front lines and along marginal areas. Like a big anchor, their utter disregard for the safety of their citizens has tangled with and consequently, weighs down any sort of progress the country has made. Only in the dark depths of the sea can we see their remains.
The chances of survival now lie in the hands of the common people. The responsibility to continually innovate has been shoved unto them, no matter how suffocated they already feel. It is as if they’ve been instructed to literally grasp at straws in the hopes that it would keep them afloat. The supposed lifeguards have turned a blind eye to the overall situation and have refused to make their moves. . . perhaps it is because they know that in order to keep themselves from drowning, they would have to stay perfectly still in their current positions.
Right now, the virus is filling our lungs faster than we can count off the waves. No matter how much we Filipinos shout, thrash and flail our arms in protest, our calls for help and demands for accountability seem to fall on deaf ears. The big waves that have passed have devoured the little trust we have left in our government. It is clear now that if no real remorse is shown and enacted by those who claim to be doing their sworn duty, the peoples’ only chances of survival will lie solely on their ability to learn how to breathe underwater.
