a blackhole of nightmares
rage and tears — entry 04
after four months of staying in our family home in cavite, i returned to the city for the first time. i finally decided to move out of the place i’m renting near my office. something i’ve been thinking of doing for months. unlike my sister who moved out of her place a month after the quarantine started, i held on to mine as long as i could. what if this ends and i need to come back? where will i stay then?
the moment we arrived in the apartment, i ripped my mask off and started packing right away, rediscovering things i forgot i even owned and allowing myself few minutes to mourn when i came across forgotten old receipts and to-do lists, and polaroid photos i thought i lost. it’s like receiving notes from a past life.
after cleaning everything out, returning my keys, and paying three months worth of rent against my will, our landlady told me: “balik ka pag okay na ulit lahat ah,” (come back when everything’s fine again)
i smiled and told her i’ll send her a message once we return to the office and i need a place again.
complacency, denial, and misplaced priorities
watching quarantine vlogs has been one of my many coping mechanisms during quarantine. there is something comforting in the fact that every single one in this world is going through the same thing. maybe comforting isn’t the right word, but there is brief respite in knowing that we’re all scared and worried about the same thing. we’re all locked up in our homes, missing out on special moments, and losing months of our lives.
but recently, vlogs titled ‘life after quarantine’ have been popping up on my recommended videos. a youtuber from ireland wrapped up the huge painting she’s been making this quarantine and said that she “finished it on time” because she’s finally moving back to the city.
i binge-watched vlogs of people in other countries with my mouth agape. people are freely strolling the park, dining out in restaurants, and enjoying the beach again. a former colleague who relocated in vietnam posted photos of her enjoying the outdoors.
in new zealand, all lockdown restrictions have been lifted since june. taiwan is now safe enough that they were able to hold the annual taipei film festival and a baseball game with more than 10,000 attendees.
it’s insane to see people abroad start rebuilding the lives they once knew. while here in the philippines, we’re very far from being able to.
in the past week alone, the number of cases jumped from 44,000 to 51,000. the government grossly underestimated this pandemic, with the president refusing to impose travel ban, joking that he just wants to slap the virus in the face, and claiming that the virus will “eventually die a natural death”.
today, the philippines has the most number of active coronavirus cases in southeast asia. and the number is expected to rise to up to 80,000 at the end of july. despite these very real and alarming numbers, covid restrictions are getting lifted and the country’s secretary of health claims that we have “successfully flattened the curve”.
reading the news every morning feels like setting yourself on fire. every headline and news notification brings a new reason for rage and devastation. from record-high unemployment rate, lack of protective equipment for health workers and frontliners, insufficient relief from the government despite securing a 380 billion loan, things are clearly not picking up here.
the administration loves to throw the blame on our “lack of discipline”. but their misplaced priorities are the real culprits here.
tears, rage, disbelief, and more tears
amid this health crisis, the president officially classified anti-terror bill as urgent. and on july 3, signed the bill into law, allowing longer periods of warantless detention and eliminating the financial penalties for wrongful arrests. rappler said it best: it’s martial rule without martial law.
a week after, 70 members of the philippine congress formally rejected the renewal of franchise of the country’s largest news network, abs-cbn. this shutdown takes away our countrymen’s main source of information during a very critical time and thousands of people's livelihood. most of all, this endangers our country’s press freedom.
if the government can shut down the largest television broadcaster, what more can they do to the smaller media organizations and publications? and what more to the ordinary people airing out their grievances?
“cleaning the mirror #1.” marina abramovic, 1995. from guggenheim.com
president duterte, together with his supporters, continue to celebrate this shutdown. with the president going as far as saying that he can die happy knowing that he “dismantled the oligarchy”.
but here’s the thing: it’s not the bosses or shareholders of the network who will truly suffer from this decision. it’s the researchers, cameramen, writers, artists, production assistants — people who work every day to the bone to tell stories and deliver information.
as my friend faith, segment producer for five years in abscbn, put it, she lost more than just a livelihood, she lost a dream. “nawala yung chance sa akin na tuparin yung pangarap ko, yung maging tulay para maikwento ang storya ng mga normal na pilipino,” she loves her job, which is in itself, a rarity. and it pains me to know that this was abruptly taken away from her. faith was one of the hundreds of employees who joined the rally on the final hearing day. they waited for the decision outside the abs-cbn esguerra gate. and once the decision was in, she told me she couldn’t even stand up or process anything. “grabe, hindi ako makatayo. lahat kami dun ganon, nakaupo lang sa gutter, yung iba tulala, yung iba galit, yung iba umiiyak,”
she told me: “alam mo, limang taon na akong puyat sa editing at nagtatatakbo sa opisina kasi may requirements sa studio. pero kahit kailan di ko naramdaman yung ‘ayoko na’ moment. kasi kahit na nakakapagod yung trabahong to, dito talaga ako masaya,”
the phrase “11,000 abs-cbn employees” has been repeated numerous times everywhere, making it seem like it’s just a mere number, a trivial statistic. but these 11,000 are people who, just like most of us, have a family to support, a dream they’ve been working on to achieve, a passion that they’ve been chasing for years.
one of my closest friends from college, frances, is a writer, segment producer and director for various shows and live events in abs-cbn. unlike me who has changed jobs thrice, she has been with the network since our graduation. we used to meet up whenever i had press conferences or special movie screenings to attend in their office. and i would always tell her: grabe, ang tagal mo na dito!
when i reached out to her on the day of the final hearing to ask her how she’s doing, she told me she’s still in denial. “baka naman hindi totoo kasi ang unbelievable ng mga nangyayari di ba? ganito ba talaga ka-heartless yung gobyerno natin? may ganito talagang mga tao?”
she opened up about how much she likes her job and how until now, she has no idea what’s going to happen. “kahit may sudden breakdowns every now and then, i just find it hard to leave this company. alam mo ‘yan! kasi kahit mahirap at nakakapagod, may fulfillment after kasi alam ko na may mapapasaya akong tao,”
three days ago, the network giant announced the start of their retrenchment program. no one was safe, and even veteran news anchors and reporters were let go. it’s hard enough to find a job pre-covid times, but definitely much more difficult now with the current economy. where will these people go?
frances told me: “ang dali kasing sabihin ng iba na maghanap na lang ng ibang trabaho. i’m young and a lot of opportunities are waiting for me. pero paano yung mga ilang dekada na sa industriya? yung mga may binubuhay na pamilya. paano sila maghahanap ng trabaho at bumalik sa level 1? paano sila magre-restart ng buhay nila?”
my friends told me they have no idea what to do next. all they can do now is continue participating in protests and noise barrages, and hope that a people’s initiative can happen.
right now, living in the philippines is like plunging into a blackhole of nightmares. every day, the government finds a new way to anger and devastate the people they should be serving.
the more i read the news and write about the crises we’re facing, the more my heart grows weary. it feels like we’ve been mourning as a nation for so long, and for so many reasons at once. how much more grief can we handle?
when our landlady asked me to come back when everything’s fine again on the day i moved out, what i really wanted to say was i don’t think “everything’s fine” is happening anytime soon.
while people elsewhere start to restore their lives, here in the philippines, we are stuck at the same place we started. the number of cases continues to rise. death is everywhere and nothing has improved. but they continue to delude themselves by saying their virus response is effective and working. “only a small number died!” says harry roque, as if these thousands of lost lives are just mere statistic.
on our drive home that day, i kept my eyes on the road. i know it would be a long time before i can safely and carefreely walk these streets again. with the anti terror law and threats to our press freedom, staying safe in this country isn’t as easy as wearing masks anymore. we have become vulnerable in more ways than one.
our “new normal” also means having to rethink the ways we protest online, finding ways to ensure the marginalized are still protected under this draconian law, and coming together to continue fighting and speaking up despite the threats to our safety.
if we ever get to emerge from this pandemic, an entirely different country is waiting for us outside. and we have a long way to go before everything’s fine again.