I UNDERSTAND his frustration, his vexation, his annoyance, his exasperation and his downright disappointment.
And yes, these words basically mean the same—after all, they are all synonyms—but I wanted to make a point.
Col. Roderick Mariano must have been at the end of his rope to recommend no government aid of any form for violators of the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
The director of the Cebu Provincial Police Office went as far as to order chiefs of police in towns where these violators were arrested to submit their names to local chief executives so they could be removed from the list of beneficiaries.
To those who have not read the news and want to know what I’m yammering about, I’m referring to the close to 300 persons who have been arrested for illegal gambling since the ECQ took effect in the whole province on March 30.
I mean, everyone’s lives have been upended since the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) decided to drop by on our shores.
Mind you, Covid-19 may not be an automatic death sentence to one who tests positive, in fact majority of those who have it are asymptomatic, but it is highly infectious.
That’s why the current health crisis is dubbed a pandemic because it is widespread, rampant, rife, global and universal—and I’m having a field day with these synonyms.
So you’d expect everybody to take the ECQ seriously, especially since our living conditions make us prone to infection. We live in an archipelago. Some islands are fairly large, but the rest aren’t. Cebu is dominated by a mountain that runs through the middle of the province, forcing most of the people to crowd the lowlands and the operative word here is “crowd”—you probably expected a list of synonyms to follow, didn’t you?
And when something like a pandemic comes our way, there are only three choices: we stay at home as the government ordered, or we head to the mountains or head out to sea.
I guess Colonel Mariano just could not fathom why anyone would risk life and limb so they could bet on a cockfight or whatever illegal gambling activity it was the violators were arrested for. That’s why he wants to teach them a lesson.
And I agree with him. But, and yes, there’s a “but,” if he gets his way, he will also punish innocent family members who benefit from if not solely rely on the government assistance to get through this ECQ.
That may be why the Department of Social Welfare and Development-Central Visayas said it will have to wait for disqualification guidelines from the central office before it starts checking its list of beneficiaries twice and finding out who has been naughty or nice.