Day after the quarantine

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

Today is the feast day of St. Joseph, the husband of Mary and we will miss the traditional celebration by families who symbolically feed the Holy Family. We often anticipate this feast not only for its religious content but for being with friends. But if the Holy Mass can be dispensed because of the present situation, so shall this devotion suffer as well.

Indeed, never in recent memory has the lives of the people of Negros been so disrupted than the imposition of restrictions that started Monday afternoon. The Bacolod City government issued a quarantine on the city and by noon the police had stopped traffic and inspected everyone for a thermal scan to determine their body temperature. The suddenness of the implementation of the order caught people by surprise because the news report did not say what time the order takes effect.

We knew the restrictions would come but not with such swiftness never heard before except when President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972. I even went to deliver my lecture at the Department of Education but there was no assembly. When we arrived, the supervisors were holding a teleconference and my lecture was streamed live because the participants who were from the different offices could not gather anymore.

Still things looked normal except that there were fewer people, the bank we went to has less clients unlike before, and several cafes and restaurants we passed by had few customers. We bought our usual supply of a tray of eggs and went to our favorite eatery where we had my favorite fish tinola, radish salad, mongo beans with coconut milk and fish vinaigrette, cooked Filipino style. We took things in stride and even had coffee in my son’s house after a brief nap.

We left for home after passing by our bank and things seemed to move as usual. When we left home in the morning we passed by the Talisay-Bacolod boundary without any hitch but on our return to Talisay at quarter past three in the afternoon, we passed by the long line of vehicles of all types, three to four abreast, that already reached the Matab-ang River bridge. As we watched from a hardware depot, more vehicles came and joined the line to Bacolod. Vehicles leaving the city were not subjected to inspection.

At the depot where we usually pass for the Hungarian sausage sandwich for snack, we found we were the only non-employees there. They also did not have the sausage because there was no more flight from Manila. I realized then that the first day of the community quarantine in Bacolod and Metro Manila posed a threat to our movements and work.

Back home I switched on the television and saw the near chaos in Manila as people and vehicles were restricted and reports of company sending their workers home for a payless “vacation”. We also learned that one hotel restaurant told their workers they should not report the next day except the supervisors. The kitchen, however, continued to receive orders from outside.

Late that Monday night we got news that one of our grandnieces was forced to walk from Bago to Bacolod because passenger buses were not allowed to go through Bago. They had to walk from there to the Bacolod boundary which is Barangay Sum-ag, ten kilometers from Bago and at night. Is that humane? A friend fetched her from Sum-ag.

I could not comprehend the justification for this policy or its implementation. Passenger vehicles are not allowed to enter but people are. Who are susceptible to infection and can spread the virus – vehicles or people? People are the most common carriers, but they could cross Bago and on foot, the best way to spread the virus if one of them was infected.

The next day I learned from an office worker another unjustifiable implementation. The passengers from Bacolod could not enter Talisay so she and the others had to walk. Unaware of this policy, she had bought three kilos of watermelon. She thought of leaving it on the road until a fellow office worker passed by and gave her a ride. She would have walked three kilometers.

The policy allows private vehicles and their passengers to pass but not public transport. As in Bago, this is discriminate and inconsiderate against the poor. The virus does not discriminate.