LIKE you, I feel fear as we shift from enhanced quarantine to general quarantine.
What is the difference between the two? Are we safe now that we can go out a little bit more? But there’s no mass testing. Cases are still rising here in Davao. We just hit case number 300.
There are two things to fear amidst the GCQ. We fear how to survive and recover to feed our family. But we also fear the risk of being one of those statistic. And the recovery will be long.
But we also feel angry. Who doesn’t feel that when we see the news? People made to go back to work, with no jeepneys or LRTs functioning to bring them to work and set them back home.
When government says there is mass testing and aid but you haven’t received any. Now with GCQ, you don’t need to get aid. And there are 10,800 cases now in NCR.
When cops go beyond the rules to arrest you. You can be their next victim and you can be made to swim on the canal, be locked inside a dog pound, or worse get shot like that traumatized soldier. Even volunteering to deliver food to the poor can land you in jail.
And then these cops can celebrate their boss’ birthday complete with cake, beer, and no physical distancing.
Then you see America, a White cop kneels at the neck of a Black man suffocating him to death, and that sparked rage, rallies, clashes, and a president calling for war on its people. There are Fil-Ams joiing the rallies, showing Black Lives Matter, and hate doesn’t save anyone.
Here, there’s another kind of war on the people. Congress, the defense sector and the president want to pass the Anti-Terror Bill. It’s a measure to save us from the threat of terror, says one top official.
But then you ask, in the past 77 days, has government stopped the threat of the virus?
Have they constantly provided food and cash assistance to stop the threat of hunger?
Have they done mass testing, isolation, treatment, and protected frontliners and the people from getting infected?
It seems the war they have been waging is against the people. The fact that 31,000 have been thrown to jail for violating quarantine, that’s half of the cases of people infected.
The bill just makes things worse. We don’t have the vaccine, we don’t have protection, now they want to send anyone to jail.
It seems we have enough of living with that fear. Incompetence, corruption, abuse should make us rage. The government bringing fear instead of hope can only spark more rage, because we want hope. Star Wars and every other movie about rebelling taught us that.