JUNE 20 - JUNE 26, 2021 8 OPINION


PEOPLES CORNER


MetroPost - the editorial (In defense of


roadblocks) and the news item on the ‘unreported’ Dauin accident (1 dead, 12 hurt in Dauin accident). The editorial asks the general public: “What are you going to do about it?”


I take it as a rhetorical question. As a member of the general public, I won’t do much.


about how local newspapers deal with similar events. Are there uniform or double standards?


But as myself, I’m curious


Both pieces taken together smell of ‘cover up’ — politicians


Eighteen months into this pandemic, each of us by now has a poignant story or two about how people have been coping. And then we realize someone out there in the neighborhood is barely surviving, going through the rough times due to COVID. Our gardener, who lost her father and then her husband in a span of one week three months ago, was forced to move in with her daughter and son-in-law who have two toddlers. She also had to tag along her two teenage girls. That’s seven.


is the son-in-law’s father, his brother and wife with two kids, and an unmarried brother. That’s another six in-laws. All 13 of them share one toilet/bathroom in a house no bigger than a typical dry goods store at the public market, and the use of the kitchen with their landlord.


guard in some local bank, is the sole breadwinner. One day he started having symptoms of COVID, was swabbed on May


the valedictorian from Negros who works for a car company. There’s the freediver. So many stories indeed. “I like it when they are intelligent,” he tells me. “I don’t have to dumb down my language. I can be as verbose as I am with you.”


TEMPEST....FROM P. 5


Are the boys different because of the pandemic? “I don’t know,” he answers. “A lot of them are like me, emerging from hibernation. A lot of them haven’t had sex in a long time.” I ask him why he thinks this sexual marathon is pandemic- related.


pandemic. It’s YOLO. You only live once,” he says. “I’ve never felt more YOLO in my life than now. And accepting of fate and magic.” He is not that deathly afraid anymore of contracting COVID-19 from all these encounters—although aside from sex he is still very paranoid, demanding face masks, social distancing, and open-air spaces only. “I make an exception only for sex,” he says. “I’m not worried because we take lianhua in my family like vitamins. It’s traditional Chinese medicine for respiratory ails, worth about 200 pesos a box. We take it onset pa lang of any symptoms—cough, fever, chest pains, others.”


“Of course it’s the


Any regrets so far? “That maybe I may have overexposed myself— especially those who have recognized or may recognize me in the future. And that I’m not Michael Tan. Syaro wala’y mo-cross paths nako ani in the future. I wonder how I would handle myself when that happens. It will be awkward.”


I wish him well, “as long as you know what you’re doing,” I tell him.


he says. “And that’s fine. YOLO, after all.” Then he


“No, I don’t actually,” The son-in-law, a security But also in that household


I just read the latest journalists facing


(both sides) appear entitled to their privacy but not the ordinary public, whose names are given out as ‘victims’ of the mishap. The drivers’ names are also given.


Be that as it may, the general public is, I believe, entitled to know the answers to obvious questions: In whose name is the Land Cruiser registered? Is that ‘fact’ unknown to the police? Are the injured and the dead being offered compensation? Why did the initial bashing die down? I guess Dumaguete, like


Paris, is a small town. People will get answers -- right or wrong, and somehow -- to these questions.


19, and was ordered by the barangay to isolate at home. For the next four days or so, 13 of them in the clan shared two cramped rooms. They had to rely on food delivered to them by the City: breakfast by 10am, lunch at 1pm, and dinner by 6pm, consisting usually of meat in some sauce. They said they felt that no one was really serious about providing nutritious food to the sick. How to get well fast?


When the symptoms of the son-in-law started to worsen, the family was forced to make him a makeshift space outside the house -- for a literal “roof” above his head. The area was a few steps outside their door as there was not much open space either; the landlord’s door was just close by and they didn’t want to bother him.


By May 22, the son-in-law was informed by the BHERT (Barangay Health Emergency Response Team) that he tested positive for COVID. By the weekend, City Heath personnel in full PPE came to pick him up from their living quarters, and transfer him temporarily to a


quotes a line from Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George: “There are only two worthwhile things to leave behind when you depart this world of ours: children and art.”


“You have your books,” he tells me. “I have my son. That’s all that matters.” It’s a profound take on


his rush to have all these encounters, all in the name of YOLO, all in the name of banishing away the fears of contagion in pandemic times. What is the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of YOLO—“you only live once”— in the time of the pandemic? The rush to risky behavior in (or after) stressful time is, in many ways, to be expected. Think of the Roaring 20s when the world burst into excess and the pursuit of hedonistic pleasures right after the Spanish flu and World War I ravaged the world. Today, many people are not even waiting for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic to pursue the crazy and the wild without filter. More than a year into the longest lockdown in the world, many people are too ready to party away their worries— with or without repercussions. On June 6, someone posted on social media a video of young people partying, sans masks and sans social distancing, in a Cebu bar. The backlash was intense, and the very next day, the Department of Health banned partying all over the country.


But YOLO is not just about partying. YOLO is doing something unique in your arsenal of experiences because tomorrow is not assured—and the riskier the experience, the better the high. Although for many others, YOLO is also as simple as gorging themselves on food, heedless of long-held diets, and gaining several pounds in the process. For others,


pursuing something else it is becoming and


I’m guessing the ‘unreporting’ (ordinary people called it a media blackout) will just fuel up more interest, which will spread with or without social media. Perhaps there will be a follow up story? Journalists have a duty to the public, but if their lives are endangered, the public has to protect them, by leaking info or by pseudonymous works like those of Rizal, del Pilar, or Joe Am today.


That, or we are back to the ‘mosquito press’ of the dark days of Marcos when the press was, too, muzzled.


Name withheld upon request Bantayan, Dumaguete City


feeding center building in the barangay, as the LGU had run out of space at the City High School quarantine facility. In the barangay building, the toilet was broken and there was no running water. The wife, even while the entire household was under quarantine, had to “escape” from their house to bring water for her husband, and a blanket to have some “privacy”. By June 2 when all the home-based first-generation contacts of the security guard had to be swabbed, the wife had expectedly also turned positive, including six other members of their family, plus a one-year-old breastfeeding his mother who was also positive. This could one of the reasons why Dumaguete had a spike of COVID cases, as the LGU is not able to provide isolation facilities, especially for those who cannot afford to be isolated/quarantined in an accredited hotel.


Faith Barretto Piapi, Dumaguete City


entirely outside their old comfort zones.


METROPOST RONALD WILSON SPORTS TALK healthassist@hotmail.com


FLORIDA, US -- After a long trip from the Philippines, I just arrived here in Florida where there seems to be little evidence of a pandemic. The airports are crowded once again.


mask or two, as most businesses here do not require its use. Face shields were never required here. I just read that the coronavirus has taken a significant unfavorable turn for the worse in Dumaguete. And so once again, here we go into another modified enhanced community quarantine. I guess we haven’t learned a thing the last 18 months.


I observed an occasional


incompetent? I shake my head in disbelief as to what is really going on. The article states the involvement of pharma- politics and traditional medical bureaucracy.


have been used since the 1980s. The Philippine FDA


So would they rather the people just die than to try something controversial that has shown great success throughout the world? What a shame! The Times also shows a graph detailing the predicament in Peru. Around May 1st, their virus cases caused a significant increase in deaths. Then they started using Ivermectin, and by


have come out about hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. In Mexico City, the coronavirus has hit a brick wall. Whoa! What do I mean? Mexico City is the fifth


largest city in the world. Recently, they started administering Ivermectin to their residents. At one point, they were administering up to 24,000 Ivermectin kits a day. Guess what? The coronavirus has hit the proverbial brick wall with a dramatic decline in the disease. Even the Manila Times


has labeled Ivermectin as a game-changer (March 21). The article notes that the time of desperation has arrived right in our doorstep.


When do we kick out demagogues and the


each other at least twice a week.”


“No regrets,” she says. “Why would I? I think it helped me also to be a better lover to my husband. But, you know what, [the guy] doesn’t even know that I’m married and have three grown-up kids. He’s single and 36 years old. I don’t know if we will ever meet again. But when the pandemic ends, and he comes to visit, I will surely meet him for coffee; nothing else.” Later, she adds: “Why


Any regrets?


My friend is hardly alone. Other friends have confessed similar preoccupations, again in the name of YOLO in the pandemic.


YOLO is mostly sexual in nature? Is it because we are looking for a connection? Is it because we are sexual beings? Or because sex is essential, like food?”


A female friend, based in Thailand, tells me that a few days before the World Health Organization declared the pandemic, she met up with someone at Payathai Skytrain Station adjacent to the Airport Link in Bangkok. “Among people wearing masks, coming and leaving, we stood in the middle of the walkway, took off our masks, and hugged. [He was] a former student, British, ten years my junior, [and my relationship with him] had reached ‘sexting,’ not just flirting during the pandemic— actually, until now. In real life, when he was still in Bangkok, we met occasionally, over friendly lunch or coffee. But our online conversations were different.”


continues. “He has been flirting with me via Messenger, and later WhatsApp. But during the pandemic, when he was back in the UK, it reached another level, we were ‘sexting’ almost every day... In one of our conversations, he [messaged me]: ‘I should have been more persistent.’ We were thinking that one day all of us would be wiped out. We promised to survive, to meet again, to have coffee, and to f--k. We both used the word. It was liberating. This was the first time that I engaged in this kind of online relationship. I’m married but sometimes a person needs to have some space and adventure. It helped me deal with the stress of the pandemic. We were both ‘satisfied’ with our sexting, [and] he would send me voice messages telling me how it helped him cope. But of course, it’s not only sexting, we talk about many things. We call


“It was spontaneous,” she


doctor in Dumaguete, who has a paid go-to guy for her sexual needs and pleasures on a weekly basis. “I see him at my clinic, but when the ECQ closed our clinic back in April 2020, I had to sneak this guy on a weekly basis into our house in a family compound with a 24-hour, 8-camera recorded CCTV spanning the whole place.”


There’s another friend, a


seeing a COVID patient at the COVID ward in a private Dumaguete hospital, she took a shower, scrubbed down her body twice, gargled Betadine, threw her scrubs in a garbage bag, and prepped herself to meet up with her go-to guy at their usual loft inside her currently closed clinic. “I drove straight from hospital to clinic. And it did the trick! Snap! Drove home [afterwards] with half of the stress off my body.” But everything had to be planned, and nothing was spontaneous about it—“because considering my status in the community, being discrete is up there in the priority list,” she says. She chalks it all up to


Once, immediately after


the pandemic. “Heightened sexual desire and drive have always been my strong stress indicators,” she tells me, “and all this ‘creativity and risk taking’ behavior was heightened at the peak of COVID-19 in Dumaguete. YOLO! I must get laid or else!” And no regrets, absolutely—she intends to have the encounter again, or find ways to eventually have her much need time with her go-to guy. “It’s a no-strings- attached, transaction-based arrangement, nothing close to a romantic relationship.” But pandemic YOLO does not always have to mean


November, they had a 14-fold decrease in CoViD-related deaths. Unfortunately, a new President came to power, restricted Ivermectin, and guess what? By February, Peru had a 13-fold increase in CoViD-related deaths. The Times adds that the All-Indian Institute of Medical Sciences of Bhubaneswar related that before Ivermectin, 20 to 25 health care workers were getting infected with the virus daily. The health workers started taking Ivermectin, and the infections fell to one or two per day, with no serious cases. The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons notes that of 49 Ivermectin studies, all have shown favorable results. Patients are dying, while over a billion doses of this safe drug


questions the use of Ivermectin but seems to be okay with the drug Remdesivir at over $1,000 a course. The WHO also questions the use of Remdesivir. A report just came out about the effectiveness of Hydroxychloroquine. It shows a 200-fold benefit in its use. President Trump was right all along.


published May 8 found that the immediate global use of Ivermectin could end the pandemic.


A peer-reviewed research New studies Has the virus hit the wall?


(I wonder what Magellan w o ul d


majority who insisted that his ship would fall off a cliff. Did his ship reach the Philippines? Of course, it did, as people in Dumaguete believe so.) Another study shows that eating a vegetarian diet reduces the risks of developing a severe CoViD-19 infection, when compared to eating a carnivorous diet of pork and beef. Up to 73 percent of vegetarians are less likely to be affected by the CoViD. Once again, health is


today as he did not listen to the


wealth.


I was able to purchase some Ivermectin, and if need be, I will certainly take it, but I am relying on my continued concern for my health by exercising, and watching the food that I eat. Again, survival of the fittest.


going on sexual thrills. It can mean willfully getting lost in a foreign place to stumble on new experiences. An artist friend did just that. “It was supposed to be an easy morning to think of nothing but just ride along the Yangon Circular Railway [in Myanmar] to observe the locality from the rail,” he tells me. “But when I struck a conversation with a baby boomer traveler from Norway who mentioned about the travel ban from Hong Kong to Manila, all I could think of was how to leave Yangon without passing through Hong Kong and avoid quarantine in Manila. So I decided to cancel my return flight via HK and willingly got stranded in Yangon for ten days—which allowed me to join a performance art event, and I painted murals with people in a village, and I visited more temples and art galleries. I departed Yangon for a flight via Kuala Lumpur to Manila and Bacolod.”


He reflects on what happened since then: “One year of the pandemic and the world is still grappling for a new normal, while Myanmar is under Martial Law. It was a spontaneous decision decided by the situation and intuition— with a certain degree of trust that the Universe will conspire and guide me through the next steps.” “I was caught in the first wave of the pandemic in late January to early February,” he continues. “I remember a vlogger in the airplane asking people if COVID-19 is real. I think it was when the collective consciousness started living in the terms of the pandemic. It made me feel ‘secure’ during that time to avoid the hotspot of the pandemic, and the notion of getting stranded was partly exciting my adventurous spirit, while part of my consciousness was thinking of strategies to return safely home. I was happy to do creative works with creative friends in Yangon, and some of them have gone underground during this time of Martial Law in their country. So I have no regrets. I know that experience becomes a teaching tool.” YOLO can also mean making the fateful decision of leaving everything that you know behind, and starting over somewhere else.


Another friend did just that—leave Manila altogether in lockdown, and live in Dumaguete. “I had to cancel my flight to Siargao


with [my girlfriend] when the Philippines went into lockdown in March 2020. We assumed that we could simply rebook the flight and travel in a month or two. Then, four months later, I was still stuck in Manila, while [she] was stuck in Dumaguete,” he tells me. “We hadn’t seen each other in half a year, which is the longest we’ve ever gone without seeing each other. The pandemic reminded me of how short life is, and I told myself that I needed to start living the life I’d always wanted.” So he purchased a one- way airfare to Dumaguete and resolved to make the most of what he calls “this beautiful existence by waking up next to [my girlfriend] every morning.” It was not without difficulty. He needed to meet many requirements in order to travel, to acquire authorization to enter Dumaguete. “I had to pretend I was an LSI (a Local Stranded Individual),” he admits. Eventually, he got to fly at the end of August after numerous attempts and cancelled flights.


decision because at first I just really wanted to travel with [my girlfriend] to Siargao,” he says. “But then it all changed and I dropped everything to start living life with [her] in Dumaguete. I’ve always wanted to live in Dumaguete, but it wasn’t a plan in the near future. But, the pandemic made me realize how precious life is and that I only have one chance to live life to the fullest.”


“It was a spontaneous


spontaneous—but he considers it by far one of the best decisions he’s ever made. “I like to live life taking risks and be spontaneous,” he says, “so deciding to drop everything and move to Dumaguete made me extremely happy. Life here is simple and laid back, which is completely different from the life I had in the big city. But, now I wake up feeling extremely blessed because this is the life I’ve always prayed for. The only downside of moving here is being far from my family. I’ve always been close to my parents and brothers, so being far from them and not seeing them is kind of a downer.”


The decision was


YOLO is risk. YOLO is a high. And in the pandemic, for many people, it is the one thing that keeps them alive.


[Note: Some details have been changed to protect the sources’ identities.]


s a y


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