We already have most, if not all, the COVID variants in the province, if we believe reports, including the deadliest of them all, the Delta.
Sounds scary. With an alarming increase in infections by the day, and deaths among the vulnerable, we should all be scared.
But are we? I don’t think so.
It appears like we have become desensitized of the COVID scare. You don’t have to look far. Just notice your neighborhood and tell me if there is still a resemblance of how careful we were when we started with the lockdown a year ago.
We have become stoic which leads us to ignore the constant reminders and warnings from our health experts and the government.
It is not difficult to understand this behavior. When we are constantly exposed to what we fear, it’s either we get repeatedly traumatized or we habituate. In this case, there are just too many contradictions and loopholes that people are forced to create their own directions mostly in favor of other competing psychological needs.
Hence, we see people going out, converging one’s more, celebrating togetherness, because these are basic social needs that we cannot live without. How much more if a family is starving, no virus or come what may, could ever stop a father or mother from filling up this hunger.
Even if they know the possible risks, people will always test the limits not until they themselves experience in vivo the ordeal of getting infected, quarantined, isolated, or experienceddeath in the family.
That is why it is very important for our leaders to hold their acts together to address these needs and provide a clear vision of where we are going. But sadly so, we are plagued by an illness long before COVID came, and the pandemic only exposed the worst of it.
It is very disheartening to see how we are languishing in our response to this crisis. We are not short of talented and bright people. Our deeper problem is that we are insecure, and therefore greedy and corrupt.
It is lamentable how our government officials still have the gall to usurp money from an already impoverished people in the middle of a pandemic. Truly unconscionable!
I don’t know if we ever have hope. I rarely become despondent and I usually look for a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. But I especially feel dragged down by controversies after controversies of late. We are surely creating our own troubles and paying the price highly.
When elections are coming, it gets noisier and nastier by the day. For some it is entertaining, a kind which validates our penchant for mudslinging and crab mentality. It is a circus where we mockingly laugh at each other’s gruesomeness.
Jose Mari Chan memesdid not help lift my mood. It only worsens my already distraught spirit. It only reminds me how superficial our celebrations can be. Sorry Joe, but I know it is not your fault, it’s ours.
It is good to be hopeful. But hope thrives when we confront realities. But sadly, it is getting not marrier but grimier by the day.