REPLACE the reading of the agony of Christ with this essay written by a young doctor:
“Today I woke in fear of death and the president of my country tells me I would be so lucky to die. It is not far-fetched to think I might. To date, 17 (now 18) doctors have already succumbed to the pandemic. One was the father of a close friend. Another, a specialist who taught my batch of doctors in med school. The first physician casualty was just a few years my senior. Other physicians, meanwhile, lie on the brink of death in intensive care units as hundreds of healthcare workers are quarantined. Those of us who remain at the frontlines confront the gaunt spectre of our mortality every day. A friend has already tested positive for Covid-19. It is a terrible thing to look askance at patients thinking they might be your doom. Or to meet your end in the act of healing. But the president of my country thinks that the death we confront is a beautiful thing: .... and the president would have us believe there is no tragedy here, only the sweet and fitting death of martyrs.”
The tragedy, or the truth, is, doctors need not die. If only the PPEs were given early. If only the President issued a travel ban, set up that task force early on January to prepare the country against coronavirus. Country meaning us, citizens, workers, farmers, urban poor, professionals.
But here we are now. Locked in our homes while news of our frontliners die one by one. We read their obituaries, realize some of them are leading figures in their fields. Anesthesiology. Pediatrics. Pulmonology. Community health. Some of them young and promising. 18 doctors make up 96 Covid-19 deaths in this country. The frontliners are dying fast. What if the virus catches up on me, is there a doctor there to save me?
Our leader talks of their deaths, and of our situation as if it’s out of our heads. That’s fatalism, a Filipino trait.
But there are other traits that spring in this time of despair. Resiliency and bayanihan comes when we hear our scientists creating tools to help fight the virus. When people share food to the poor, or create PPEs for the frontliners. When artists rekindle our spirit with songs, poems paintings and videos.
This is not about luck. It’s about our will to fight, to live. Let our Holy Week fill us with such inspiration.