Life before COVID, after COVID: Turon, lumpia, ballet on Zoom, life reformed treasure hunting
Forget the new alphabet soup of ECQ, GCQ, and the upcoming MGCQ. The thing to remember is life “Before COVID” (or BC) and “After Covid” (AC).
In the same way people mark their lives according to watershed events — before and after Hiroshima, or 9/11, or even the advent of the internet — the days before and after this pandemic will be bisected by a wide divide.
We will, for example, recall wistfully the downright decadence of the past: The besos and whispered secrets, the kilometric Vikings buffets, the cozy suppers and endless schmoozing, even the blowing-out of birthday cakes will all recede into fond memory. All of them are now considered reckless by today’s strict health standards and SD (social distancing).
On one such night in the distant Eighties, almost all of the above occurred at one of Larry Cruz’ restaurants, Solana on M. Adriatico Street in Ermita. (Larry was not only a renowned foodie of the time but also one of the important public information kings under President Marcos. He was the likes of Sal Panelo and Harry Roque all rolled into one.) At the resto’s opening-night party, one well-known fashion designer squared off against another very well known society artist over the favors of still another famous figure. Whispers had it that it was a most beloved icon known for his athletic physique. A stabbing with a cocktail fork was involved; so, too, was a P1-million settlement to avoid a messy law suit.
The difference between then and now is not so much the naughtiness of it all but the current atmosphere that demands in these terrible times the absence of glee, gossip, and yes, gratuitously bad behavior.
There have been calls, for example, by the less socially attuned for the taxation of the hard-fought gains of Viber businessmen and Lazada entrepreneurs. Senator Migz Zubiri’s objections to this got it right: This is just not the time to appear unmindful of the valiance of Filipinos who have been meeting the challenge of COVID in their own ways.
A case in point is the tale of four out-of-work workers who turned to frying turon (banana fritters) and lumpia (spring rolls) and hawking them for P10 each on the sidewalks, mainly out of desperation. They were living, packed like sardines, (actually more like starving) in a ramshackle compound. Because of their promdi status, none of them qualified for the otherwise-generous aid packages from the city.
As fate would have it, they would twice a day pass the apartment of an WFH newshen connected with DZRH. Susan Isorena-Arcega wound up buying merienda from them, striking up a conversation, and with a true journalist’s nose, ended up with an inspiring story that suited the mood of our times.
She wrote the following on her Facebook, “I found out they were construction workers who got stranded here during the lockdown. ‘Dumidiskarte lang, ‘Nay,’ said one. ‘Kasi po hindi kami entitled sa anumang ayuda. Hindi po kami puedeng umasa sa wala.’ And yet they remain upbeat,” she said.
The internet promptly lost it and in a matter of hours, that post was shared 60,000 times, had 128,000 likes, and attracted thousands of pesos’ worth of turon and lumpia orders for the hardy and enterprising men.
They’ve been paying forward their good fortune, too, in the spirit of these After- COVID times. Every week or so, they offer baskets of free turon and lumpia to the neighborhood that first patronized them. Their names are Prak Joseph Serrano from Bacacay, Albay, a worker in a marble company; Ariel Gakit from Tagbina, Surigao del Sur, a laborer for a condominium-building company, Justin Ganza from Butuan City, on the crew assigned to a Forbes Park project and Vincent Demafiles from Bago City, a janitor with a cleaning agency.
Meanwhile in the north, almost as soon as the lockdown was announced, an organization called “Good ACTS” sprang into action to help Baguio City’s artists, crafters, and people in tourism support. All of their occupations had evaporated overnight with the lockdown. Mayor Benjie Magalong, one of our favorite action-men, was the first to donate 500 “care-packs” consisting of rice, vitamins and the usual canned vittles.
There are plenty of moving stories in his part of the country: We are told of Alan Manalastas, a painter who’s the epitome of a “starving artist” whose opportunities have pretty much gone down to zero in the ECQ — and yet, he volunteers his time (and pedaling power on an old bike) to deliver emergency allowances to fellow artists. It must be a new wind blowing indeed because the Baguio folk, as hard up as any, have proved to be resilient and completely complaint-free. (Nobody here is whining that this or that received his rations first; everybody is willing to make do with whatever is received.)
Other tales of old-fashioned gumption are to be heard. Jacqueline Go-Roman of Ballet Baguio says, “Our school was established in 2003 and started out with only 4 students. This year, we had more than 100 students until the quarantine happened. In the beginning, I was devastated because I just had my studio renovated and spent a big amount. My husband, a Philippine Navy pilot, encouraged me to take online courses and that would be a turning point in my life. One of the professors said, “The world is changing very fast. Your plans must also change as quickly in order for you to keep up.” I realized that it was all about working with what you have and really working hard.”
Jacqueline boldly took her ballet classes to Zoom. “At first, some parents were hesitant to join their kids to our online classes because ballet is something that has to be taught physically, face to face, and in the studio. We had to give out free trial classes at first. But when the parents saw that their kids were receptive to the classes, they enrolled them.”
Meanwhile back in the lowlands, stories of random acts of kindness continue to tug at our online heartstrings: A security guard named Renz Abelita does double duty outside a Palawan Pawnshop teaching street children their school lessons on “Mission Posible.” A policeman named Jojo Paguia buys up a sidewalk vendor’s entire basket of saba bananas so the old man can go safely home is captured on Pilipinas Trending Viral. (In two days, that story had 234,000 likes and was shared 134,000 times.)
Yes, in this way, we remain a country united, perhaps not by good fortune, nor by good health but by good intentions.
