we have long came to the point the government doesn't even bother anymore to hide the truth about their motives, distracting us from the reality the country is steadily sunken in through these circus show schemes. I, personally avoid this entry of mine for five months. and every time I would open my laptop, I would blink fast enough to consciously not favor the burnout that this will took out of me. what more the government would take away, maybe a year of staying at home or sacrificed human connection for the sake of being “discipline” but not some good days as sza’s song goes. a memory of a goldfish is required to not fail in recalling the government’s negligence and incompetence subverted from within.
the constant state of dilemma I have to deal with every day were preserving my sanity by not engaging with political affairs and the stigma it involves to at least stay out of the news once in a while, to take care of oneself without feeling guilty. and for a person of restlessness, it’s always been a mindful unceasing balance of the former and latter. to bleed a blind eye on the system is uncalled for with the chaos that ensued with the baying mob.
I would say: "it's not like I pulled out a neutral card,”, making up excuses in my head just to steer clear to begin typing again. but today, I have the courage to gather all the tenacity I could muster to voice out the tiniest displeasure long endured by everyone. at least be a cruel reminder that privilege lies somewhere between the conscious forgetting of circumstances that do not personally involve our problem.
an initial reaction of blatantly overlooking past the factualness of presence occurring with no intention to take action is like a slap in the wrist for a lot of us. we always failed to seek thorough understanding simply because it is much easier for us to cope if we could shift our point-of-view towards a silver lining in everything.
one year of misplaced precedence and half sense of urgency
a year into the pandemic, many things already happened, some issues has easily been forgotten for the very reason that there’s no room to cater dismay and tribulation with the overlapping unresolved issues. every single day is a never-ending void of grief and sorrow.
president duterte’s unwillingness to make the pandemic more manageable. more than 15,000+ COVID-19 cases a day, government officials cutting in line and violating vaccine roll out and priority for frontliners (including guards, janitors etc.), healthcare workers, elders, and people with co-morbidities; political campaign in the middle of the crisis, assassination of activists and unionists in the southern tagalog and endless militarized quarantine with ridiculous abbreviations that does not make the slightest sense. please, feel free to nudge my memory for all the things I forgot to mention.
credits: jc punongbayan. Rappler.
the lockdown itself, reeks detachment to the reality of most people in the low and middle socio-economic class have: bills due to pay, three meals a day, and a piled-up problem especially when there’s no dependable cash aid to ease one stiff shoulder at all.
my brother who works at an office and my dad who is a field supervisor leap to travel to work everyday is something that were against my will until now but leaves me no other options either. unemployment in the middle of a COVID-19 crisis that could starve you to death is a lot worse than jeopardizing your health to commute.
the “pasaway” narrative in following health protocols has always emphasized towards working-class citizens and the daily wage workers. if this goes on, not only will the government feel less responsible for what the pandemic cost us, but also it could tolerate more impractical failures in the future.
in the end, people would choose any means to have foods serve at their table even if it is to risk contracting the virus enduring congested public transportation with the same people having the same stretch-out options.
intent prolongment of delays
back in November five months ago, I was wide awake past 2:00 am and already complaining of a migraine because I couldn’t sleep hearing the strong wind's decisive blow on our roof. with the shutdown of abs-cbn, the philippines’ largest media to relay news, the announcements on social media just made the slightest impact to warn unlike before. the effect made an irreversible turn of events in the most remote areas from minor to no luck.
even before PAGASA declared rolly as a super typhoon, it was already considered the world's most robust tropical cyclone for 2020. typhoon ullyses followed hastily leaving no time to console the casualties, especially for those located on a low-altitude estuary. continuous rainfall from previous succeeding storms that strike almost the same area within two weeks, people somehow relinquish their unpleasant experience during supertyphoon ondoy that took place nearly 12 years ago. only this time, we are in the middle of a pandemic.
in this instance, I also learned that strong typhoons and cyclones have more in-depth explanations than just being called a natural disaster. large company contributed drastically to global warming by the constant production of fossil fuel resulting in climate change. the country's vulnerability and unpreparedness to these disasters are exploited. it’s important that we demand climate justice as well.
I was about to sleep when the news came breaking on twitter. the released water from magat dam, the largest dam in the country, caused many houses to submerge in cagayan, tuguegarao, and isabela provinces. I was up all night to help spread the news to any emergency response team by retweeting. seeing footage of the people who were there desperately calling out for help stirred out my emotions—it was a state of provocation and disheartened because a matter of seconds, minutes could cost them their lives.
it was evident that the government failed to pay attention to the lack of response effort and guidelines during disasters, yet again. spending fortunes with guns and increasing wages for police officers readily for wars. while the marginalized sector cut of their minimum wages (which are now ridiculously low with the prices of essential goods) to pay taxes just to be left out to rescue their skin.
I was also pre-occupied worrying for my friends whose provincial home where in batangas and bulacan, forgot how many times the phrase “stay safe” has already been coined out of habit. the government was sleeping peacefully in the comforts of their home abandoning these people to die begging to do their job. their passivity will be responsible for thousands of innocent lives this is just one of the many countless times I felt demoralized, crashing in the waves of breaking points. there was no more point to study, knowing there is a grey area for the people I longed to serve in the near future.
it is considered a crime to turn a blind eye on the system that won't have a place for us, even educated in the society with antipathy governance. and with that, I abandoned my will to study for my midterms and expressed my outburst through social media. it added fuel to the fire, knowing this is only what we can do during radical time to reach out— using hashtags and suppressed peevish call for accountability. it was frustrating. it was a spleenful thing to do. but it was better than none.
this all happened in november of 2020, a five months intervals, and there is still no sign of an attempt, if not, an urgency to reconcile the conflicts of interest created by withholding initiative.
mind the fourth wall
“Time Change/Change Time” a group art exhibit by Natalie Baxter, Laura Brown, T.J. Dedeaux, Helina Metaferia and Antoine Williams held by the Auburn University Department of Art and Art History. Photographer: Maddie Edwards
we simply cannot put our own best interest at this moment, knowing some people are granted with the least justice one year has already passed when they opt to continue struggling. we could struggle with them, and we should heighten to implicate the exertion and difficulty they face. we should also struggle for them and with them.
it made it hard to strike the injustice that divides us when the former generation already made amends with cruelty. and it will take us years of protest to dismantle a normalized system only to be replaced with another one. on the brighter side, education and the people have the greater power to overcome this endless cycle of hurdles as the country yearns for a new start, a head start to be mindful of what is happening around us.
if we can put our minds into it rather than divide among ourselves, it doesn't matter who makes the least common sense and whether the side of the opinion is more favorable. it's crucial that we also be mindful of who is the real enemy of the state.
but until then, whenever my mom would ask me, “lockdown pa ‘rin tayo? grabe ang tagal na”, or when my dad would tell me “extended na naman ang ECQ hanggang katapusan.” I’ll keep reminding them about the facts that so much remains to be done, and the claustrophobia of wearing a face mask under a face shield in the summer heat is just a façade of white lies of all the truth we are in.
thank you for reading this entry. clicking the heart button below or sharing this with your friends will be very much appreciated!
I encourage everyone to register to vote and vote wisely next election.
again, if you reached this far, you are great! this means a lot to an amateur such as myself who just begins to love writing for leisure (and therapeutic benefits).