MY GENERATION is no stranger to apocalyptic scenarios like what we have right now with Covid-19. In my pre-teen years, we had cold feet over the “Skylab” and the “three days of darkness” that highlighted the possible end of the world and also the behest of hoarding food to live through.
The Skylab, the first United States space station that failed to reboot, was rumored to fall anytime and would crash the spot where it would dive. Talks circulated that survival is only possible if one hid in underground bunkers and accumulate adequate food to last until the radiation clears up.
The “three days of darkness,” on the other hand, spread information about the attack of evil that could only be averted by prayers and the lighting of candles blest by priests. People also hoarded food since they were told not to go out. Fortunately, the two apocalyptic predictions by doomsayers did not happen.
But, what brought my generation scrambling for food was the shortage of rice in the early 1980s when the government started to import rice from Thailand and China. This was the time when the price of rice spiked from P2.50 per kilo at retail in Tabo-an Market to P6 per kilo for the fancy variety.
To ensure stable distribution, the government opened up Kadiwa Centers where imported rice from Thailand and China were sold around P 3.00 a kilo, but each one can only buy a maximum of five kilos every day.
There were three Kadiwa Centers in Cebu City, one in Sanchez Building along Sancianko St., the second one in T. Padilla near the public market and another inside Cebu City Hall, mostly serving government workers.
Due to limited stocks, there were times that rice was available once a day, which explained why people had to endure long lines to get cheap supply. It was also in Kadiwa where Maling Luncheon Meat was first publicly sold at one can per customer.
The consumption of rice and luncheon meat from China during those days was still devoid of the tale of fake foodstuff, unlike nowadays when anything from China is suspected of being unsafe and phony including the dreaded Covid-19 believed to be originating also from China.
Currently, the long queue in Carbon market due to the imposition of social distancing is reminiscent of the snake-like lines in Kadiwa centers where my mother, brother and I have to endure to replenish our rice supply until the next payday.
As what I can observe from my limited trips to the grocery amid the threat of Covid, there is enough food supply, what is restricted however, is our mobility to prevent contracting the fearsome disease.
My experience in lining up for the cheap China rice and Maling at the defunct Kadiwa taught me the value of sacrifice and frugality towards food, which many of the millennials no longer possess until their lives turned inconvenient by the declaration of the enhanced community quarantine.
While we still don’t have the vaccine, let us follow all government directives because like the childhood horror of the Skylab and the "three days of darkness," Covid too will pass and we can all regain our freedom to move around.