So many things to be angry about these days. It’s difficult to contain it. When you voice it out, you will be red-tagged and that’s equivalent to a bull’s eye on your forehead for the military and police. Ted Herbosa, that effing DDS medical doctor, who gloated about the death of one balut vendor because of exhaustion while lining up at a community pantry organized by actress Angel Locsin. How can a doctor, who swore an oath not to harm anyone, be gleeful about a poor man’s death?
I’ve seen the lines personally when I brought the rice sacks. There are so many hungry people who suffer for hours just to be able to get food.
The length of this video is almost 2 minutes, that's how long the queue is of people lining up for one of the many community pantries that sprouted in the Philippines 🇵🇭
I knew in my head that many of us are hungry, but it is different when you see it.
— Karl Lester 'Kane' M. Yap (@karllesteryap) April 23, 2021
I can’t afford to be angry anymore because my heart is already black as it is. So much anger inside of me that I might implode. All I can do is to channel this anger to just helping others. I’m so angry that I no longer know what to do with it.
When the government fails the Filipinos, people power rises. Bayanihan at its finest.
Maginhawa community pantry. Photo from Facebook.
Filipinos are accepting and have big hearts. We do not hesitate helping our brethren, be it our fellow countrymen or foreigners (white Russians, European Jews, and Vietnamese refugees come to mind). A lot went hungry when the government started imposing lockdowns again without enough or no financial support to the most vulnerable. So kind-hearted souls started a community pantry, in Maginhawa St, Quezon City.
The sign says “Give only based on what you can afford. Get only based on what you need.” According to anecdotal reports, no one or only a few abused this honesty system. There may be one or two who brought sacks but most only got what their family needs. The queues were long but everyone was disciplined.
This community pantry concept spread like wildfire nationwide. ❤️ It is so heartwarming. When the government failed, ordinary Filipinos rose up to the occasion to make sure no one goes hungry.
Farmers and fisherfolk donated to the community pantry. Excess produce and catch were given to those in need.
Of course dirty politicians will mess up this pure-hearted endeavor.
What this FB post says is that the barangay captain in Los Baños has been demonizing the founders/organizers of the local community pantry because they refused to play politics. The barangay captain wanted them to move the donations to the barangay hall/office so it would look like it’s his initiative. Or the donated goods will be repacked with his name/seal in it. Because politics.
DDS trolls began red-tagging the efforts, saying this is a communist move to brainwash the people. Of course they will tarnish the movement because this is a slap on the face of the Duterte administration that failed the people. It proved that the demon in Malacañang doesn’t fucking care and is just concerned about image and obsessed with bringing down critics.
As part of my continued support to the less fortunate, I will buy rice packs tomorrow and bring these to various community pantries around me.
Because we can’t let anyone die of hunger while we are privileged to be able to stay at home and live comfortably.
My pulse oximeter has finally arrived. I should make a Covid pack to prepare for home care just in case somebody gets infected and needs isolation. I should be getting the disposable and washable PPEs next.
I’m praying that I wouldn’t need all those things ever.
The situation is not easing up. Everyday my social media feeds are filled with people who express sorrow over a relative or a friend’s death because of COVID-19. Everyday. I’m getting tired and frustrated of saying condolence everyday.
My mom finally got her vaccine shot but I won’t feel at ease until she gets the second dose since protection comes seven days after the second shot. My second dose is scheduled on May 9. Seven days after that I would be confident of taking care of anybody who needs to be nursed back to health.
Meanwhile, one of my cats is in heat again. 🤦🏻♀️ After 3 weeks. I only had 3 hours of sleep because of her. She’s soooooooooo noisy doing her mating calls and rubbing herself all over, knocking down stuff. I finally rebooked their spaying, which was originally scheduled after Christmas. I wasn’t able to bring them to PAWS on their appointed date because I was still dead during those days 💔. Hopefully things will go well with their surgeries on the 28th. 🐈🐈
A parody of Weekend At Bernie’s, a movie my family enjoyed in the early 1990s.
So the old man is still alive and kicking, as shown in his sort of recorded press briefing, whatever proof-of-life broadcast they did last night. Based on the snippets of whatever is posted on Twitter, there was nothing there of note, just ranting against his critics, no concrete plans about the frickin’ lockdown, no plans–period. And yet the DDS keeps on applauding.
Meanwhile, I am much better today compared to Sunday night and yesterday. I felt so rotten for 24 hrs because the side effects of Sinovac were so pronounced. I was itchy all over and felt like I had flu but not full-blown flu. I just wanted to sleep and stay in bed but I had three calls yesterday so…oh well.
So that means my antibodies are fighting off the inactivated coronavirus? I don’t know but damn it should work, after all the crappy feeling I had yesterday.
My aunt had a stroke and is now suffering from pneumonia. She is diabetic and in her 80s. No hospital in Manila took her in because they are so full so not even non-covid cases could be accommodated. My sister assisted them in finding a hospital in my hometown and thankfully they were able to admit her at 1 am yesterday. My cousin drove back to QC to get clothes and other stuff since it seems like they would be staying there for quite a while. She didn’t have enough masks to allow her to double-mask so I bought a box of surgical masks and gave her all my cloth masks when she stopped by my apartment so she could double mask in the hospital. She went back to my hometown to isolate in one of our rooms in my mom’s house until she could bring home her mom.
So now I’m back to sewing cloth masks again because I don’t have any left. Plus my cousin may need more.
San Miguel Light to keep me company while I sew new masks. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Something horrific happened earlier. I was supposed to message my brother and send him the Lazada link to a laptop that he can check out for his son but damn it I mis-sent it to J. I was wondering why my brother wasn’t responding. Too late, I realized that I sent it to J, because his chat box was next to my brother’s. I had to quickly recall it but it would still show that I sent something. In disgust, I deleted J altogether.
I should have deleted the chat box a long time ago. Now he would think I’m trying to get his attention. Fuck. I’d rather die than do that. I no longer have anything left in me except my dignity. I can’t lose it again.
He may not be my biggest error but he’s my biggest regret. No more, I will never be duped again.
Come to think of it, I don’t know if he really knew me. I bet you he even doesn’t know when my birthday is.
Aside from feeling horrible physically, I am also feeling crappy about that mistake. I needed something to make me feel Ok-things-are-shit-right-now-but-you-will-be-fine-later so I came back to music. I used to listen to “The World I Know” by Collective Soul way back in college when I feel like I’m going nowhere. I would just lie down on my bed and feel the lyrics. I need this right now, after ranting to a friend this morning about work and how I hate it these days and I already wanted to resign but I still don’t have an alternative lined up.
I was so mentally tired yesterday after battling with a difficult edit…I hate editing pieces from this particular xxx country. I always spend the entire day fixing their copies, fact-checking, etc. By 6 pm, I turned on my email auto reply that says it’s public holiday and I will be back on Monday. I usually do that to fend off the journos from this xxx country who have no sense of personal space. They did that last week when I was on holiday. I already have that auto reply and still they message me on MS Teams… 🤦🏻♀️
To help me destress, I turned to my sewing and finished my curtains for my own room. Hooray! Only three panels left to sew for the windows in the living room.
My hand-sewn curtains in my bedroom. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
Since the curtains are now a bit thicker, hopefully my cats will be deterred from turning into Spidercats and climb up to the windows.
My 10-year-old cross-stitch project. Photo by CallMeCreation.com
To take a break from my curtain project, I took out my Mother and Infant cross-stitch project that I started when I was pregnant with my girls. A decade ago. Since I have more time now, I think I can finally finish this. I have a lot of finished cross-stitch projects that I need to have framed.
I’m going to see a pulmonologist today so I can be issued a medical certificate that says I have chronic respiratory disease. Good luck to me, I will be exposing myself to all things I can catch at the polyclinic near my apartment. 🙄
Plague doctor mask. Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com
My Facebook newsfeed has become an obituary page of sorts, with almost everybody posting that they have lost friends and family due to COVID-19. People are so desperate now that they’re willing to ingest veterinary anti-parasitic drugs to cure themselves or loved ones of COVID. The girls’ dad ordered from somewhere Lianhua Qingwen, a Chinese herbal medicine, which he claims to beat COVID, and had sent them to my maids (Because he perfectly knows I refuse to talk to him). I told the maids to tell him that 1) I am not paying for its delivery (because he told the maids I should pay for the delivery, scumbag) and 2) we are not taking that because it has not been approved by the FDA for COVID. It’s just not even an antiviral drug. The DOH also said it cannot be obtained without prescription, therefore, he got it from the black market. Chinese drugs from the black market…Dodgy is an understatement. I’d rather take Tamiflu, which is like PHP 107 per capsule, even if it is not enough to help cure COVID-19, but at least it can bring down the symptoms of influenza A and B that can occur with COVID.
Anyway, a fellow journo also related the story of his friend who tested positive for COVID and was symptomatic. Instead of going home and risk infecting his family or seeking medical help because hospitals now are bursting at the seams, he chose to isolate himself in his SUV and parked it outside his office in Camp Crame. He was found, with water and food provisions, dead inside his car that had its engine still running. When this journo last spoke to his friend over the phone, he said he could hear his friend was having a labored breathing. That’s how bad the situation is now. People are choosing to isolate inside their cars because we no longer have anywhere to go. We are effing trapped and this government just let us die.
Meanwhile…
Duterte is missing. He hasn’t appeared since his lewd birthday video and sham of a birthday picture were posted a few weeks ago. Cabinet officials have been cancelling press briefings. Duterte’s regular rant session has been cancelled several times in the past few days.
In other news: An Australian Royal Flying Doctor Service Hawker 800XP with call sign VH-RIO, a medivac jet, took off Diosdado Macapagal airport at 1051 Saturday, April 3, and landed three hours later at 1409 on Selatar Airport, Singapore.
“After considering the recommendation of the experts and the current situation of high COVID-19 transmission and limited available vaccines, the FDA is allowing the use of Sinovac on senior citizens,” FDA Director General Eric Domingo said in a text message to ABS-CBN News.
I’ve been told by another journo that Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año will no longer be able to get back to work as his COVID infection has become worse. An official of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (central bank) was in bad shape for weeks when he was at the Philippine General Hospital and last week he posted on Facebook (we are FB friends even before government service) that he is now recovering. They are the few privileged ones who have higher chances of survival because they can easily get hospital beds. The rest of us would have to take care of ourselves and we will play the Darwinian game of survival of the fittest.
Which reminds me, I should buy the PPEs and pulse oximeter now online before they run out.
J should get out of the country now before we are overrun by Covid. We are the worst in Asia Pacific right now. We even overtook Indonesia and China in terms of number of cases and deaths. Octa research projects that we will have 1 million cases by end of this month. Hospitals cannot take it anymore and HCWs are thinning out.
On the other side of the world, people are picking up their lives and are already moving on to tackle other issues like #StopAsianHate.
