2020 was a year like no other.
It was a disruptive year; almost everything that we used to believe, do and follow was turned upside down by an unseen force called only as Covid-19 aided by its chief enforcers, WHO and the big pharmas.
Its first casualty is human relations. Social distancing, whatever state enforcers and health experts say about its value, has been making most people isolated, lonely, dull and sickly. Human interrelations inherently natural and necessary for the growth and survival of humans has been cut by state-imposed health social distancing protocol, later “re-opened” by multinational-owned online services, and redefined by Covid-19 enforcers.
Health protocol imposing mandatory use of facemask and face shield has never been healthy at all; people have to self-violate natural human science by exhaling carbon dioxide and inhaling it too. Fortunately, it’s a lot cheaper than mandating everyone to wear full PPEs, or having oxygen or dextrose in our body which could have been healthier and safe.
Curfew is one safety protocol strictly imposed; due to widespread blatant violations and circumvention especially by minors, seniors, law enforcers and business establishments, it has been made flexible in various ways and time depending on LGUs' appreciation of their situation.
In Bacolod, city officials tried once to allow businesses to re-open at height of pandemic but imposed no public transport, stricter and longer curfew hours, and liquor ban. Most businesses ended up with their employees and workers hanging around sleepy and their spaces swarmed instead by flies and mosquitoes.
Liquor ban in Bacolod protocol was followed diligently by most restos, bars and popular drinking rendezvous. But reveler and alcoholics shifted their carousing to barangay level hubs and neighboring cities and towns without liquor ban.
First time in history, masked people can enter banks and get money from the tellers with complete ease.
Unprecedented too in history is that during the worst of lockdowns, youngsters run after their family senior members who are sneaking out of homes and not the other way around.
First time too that I missed my apos, daughters and the rest of our kin due to frequent and unannounced changes in the quarantine status in their place to our province that caused stringent travel requirements and flight cancellations.
The pandemic disrupted old normal. But human nature seems to have ways for many to circumvent even the most limiting, repressive and disruptive measures to satisfy their ego and physical desires.
Pandemic forced people, companies, and factories to cease work and business operations causing the planet earth to heal itself from all kinds of air, water and soil pollution causing worsening climate change, traffic, deadly storms and social violence. I missed the ‘pandemic times’ riding highways and city streets with hardly any people and vehicles around, nor traffic lights and stores flickering; the solitude, silence and fresh air on the road were just amazing. Of late, we are quickly returning to old deadly environment everywhere.
Social distancing and other health protocols have triggered new life’s constructs, new modes of work, which consequently will reduce human labor and workspaces, and give way to man-less computers and robotics. Multinational companies and survivalist entrepreneurs have flooded online markets with all sorts of products from health items to fancy electronics, while greedy companies gloated over dismissing employees and workers at will without due process and fair separation pays, others in imposing cost-effective skeletal workforce.
They say we have entered the era of new normal. I only see and experience more abnormalities.
But our human nature tells us, we have to move on, see and experience harmony in ironies and conflicts, and find new meaning and challenges in the increasingly meaninglessness and brokenness of the world around us. It is simply reaffirming and appreciating our purpose of existence.*