Ears that don’t listen

By Modesto P. Sa-onoy

 

The Zoom meeting convened by the Concerned Doctors and Citizens of the Philippines last March 3 was interesting not only because of the diversity of its participants but also because of the frankness of their apprehensions about the situation in the country and the unexplainable position of the government to reject opposite views and alternatives.

Earlier I was informed that the CDCP has about 5,000 members, mostly doctors and professionals. I learned from this meeting that they include businessmen.

From the feedbacks I got months before, the CDC membership is not limited to the Philippine shores. Indeed, there are many doctors and professionals abroad some of whom have commented to this column gladly because they were all positive but also wanting someone to voice their concerns. I think the CDCP has fulfilled this desire of people of goodwill who are denied access to free expression of views and proposals.

I know a few who I believe are members of the CDC but I haven’t met, because they were the ones who contacted and urged me to join the Zoom meeting which I accepted not just with pleasure but with high expectations of what others think and are planning to do.

There is a common thread in the views expressed in the meeting – the government refuses to listen and even quickly threatened those who took the courage to speak. And the people were too busy or perhaps afraid to even respond to the silencing of voices not in accord with the music and tune the government prescribed.

I was reminded of Paul Simon’s song, the “Sound of Silence”: People talking without speaking / People hearing without listening / People writing songs that voices never share / And no one dared disturb the sound of silence. / “Fools, said I, You do not know / Silence like a cancer, grows.”

The draconian measures and the dictatorial methods of enforcement had indeed forced people to talk in silence of their plight, to hear but not to listen or act fearful for their lives and fortunes.

And so the silence crept into the collective psyche of the Filipinos and merely waited for whatever the government would allow them to know, to believe and to have – a vaccine as an answer to their prayers.

But the government tells everyone the vaccine will not protect them, will not prevent them from getting the dreaded virus and the budget had to be raised from among the easiest and fastest means – stiff increases in motor fuel.

Even the Congress, the supposed voice of the people had been silenced. They seem to have refused to hear and speak – don’t disturb the protocols while people are dying despite the protocols that are now proving ineffective but brutal in its impact on the national economy and the livelihood of the people.

But the convenors of the CDCP are not intimidated by the refusal of the government to listen and they are taking steps – one a time, one official at a time, and one movement at a time. As the cited Paul Simon’s song says to those who refuse to listen: silence like a cancer grows.

Now many people are refusing to be silent no more. Some groups, like CDCP, are confronting the government decision-makers, while others are resorting to their known method of treatment that had already saved many lives and prevented the infection – all without that useless and expensive government vaccine.

There is also a rising number of people refusing to be vaccinated and more officials are feigning love for the front liners and the poor by directing that these people be given the Chinese donated Sinovac first.

Their reluctance to get vaccinated first can be attributed to the increasing number of deaths and adverse reactions from the injections of these vaccines. It appears that the deadly impact of these so-called vaccines may appear months later in various forms. Worse is that the effectiveness of the vaccine cannot be known soon; similarly the adverse effects may be known later because these vaccines are still on testing stage.

Those vaccinated had become the human test subjects and officials don’t want to be the guinea pigs. They’re now listening.