WE OWE a debt of gratitude to our frontliners!
We depend on their efforts to keep the pandemic a safe distance from each of us in our daily lives, here in Baguio, the Philippines and most places throughout the world. I admire the tenacity and courage that we witness or read about frontliners.
Our friends and relatives who are working overseas as overseas Filipino workers (OFW) perform crucial roles in medical and scientific positions. They face unique challenges overseas, meanwhile, their hearts and minds are also here in the Philippines with their loved ones.
We are fortunate here in the Philippines, Asia and much of the world to have the government, businesses, medical, scientific, law enforcement, and private citizens working together on a common Covid-19 plan and shared protocols against the pandemic.
But we also see that the virus is being used as a political weapon in the USA. Small groups of people are rebelling against accepted protocols that put themselves and others unnecessarily at risk. We see sensational news stories each week about these unfortunate happenings. This is of particular concern since so many Filipinos work in every major city and many smaller towns across the USA.
The current situation places an additional burden of risk to Filipino workers from both the virus perspective and also by potentially being misidentified as a Wuhan, China resident. Some Americans with limited exposure to Asia are caught up in participating in the Asian-bashing incidents and end up targeting Filipinos, and other non-Mainland Chinese Asians, along with Mainland Chinese.
As I write about the sad events unfolding in the USA, it seems like fiction. I guess that is why it is sometimes said, “Truth is stranger than fiction!”
With the pandemic predicament unfolding here in the Philippines and wherever Filipinos are working abroad, humble prayer is offered to consider for your use:
God, grant me calm as I go about my work.
And may I breathe-in Your hope, and
Exhale it in all that I do today.
Amen.