Last March 28, St. Louis Hospital in Tacurong City, Sultan Kudarat issued a public advisory that one of their personnel was mobbed and whose face was splattered with Zonrox. The violence was committed because the stupid gang would not want to be with health workers and frontliners who, they thought, could be carriers of Coronavirus.
The Tacurong City incident is not an isolated one. On March 28, too, an urban poor president discriminated a nurse in the Bicol Regional Training and Teaching Hospital telling her and her husband not to rent in a house in Bagtang, Daraga, Albay, because she might be a carrier of the virus.
There are also other cases of discrimination against health workers and frontliners circulating in social media and these need to stop. We can’t battle this pandemic by driving away the people that are doing their best to contain the virus and help the ones falling. Instead of discriminating them, why not give them special treatment? In the first place, look at personal protective equipment (PPE) they are wearing — several layers that looks very hot to wear. Worse, there are frontliners who don’t even have PPEs because there is no budget available.
While we are complaining of being locked up due to quarantine regulations, these healthworkers are out there braving the streets to and fro their places of work with a number of them walking because there are no more mass transportation. And the worst part, most of them do not enjoy the privilege of hugging their love ones, especially their children, just to ensure that their family members are safe.
We are in abnormal times. If we are that normally stupid especially in elections, let us try to use at least a common sense in this trying times. While we all fear catching the virus, we cannot and should not discriminate the ones standing up for us — the health workers and frontliners. If they are gone, or at least stopped working because they are tired, we are not sure how we’ll last.
We are in abnormal times. If we usually live in isolation, if we used to live like barbarians, like animals, this is the time to be human. Let us educate ourselves. Let’s listen to authorities. If we have the privilege to connect to the internet, read. Listen. Watch. And if the government is not working or the officials are sleeping, knock, call their attention, exact accountability. They were not elected just to be the be the only ones to enjoy the testing kits, to break the quarantine protocols, or to be the only ones to live. They were elected to work and serve the public. Us.
We are in abnormal times. As such, let us not live the normal life we use to have. Let us stand together as humans, as a people.
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