Please stay at home

The world is facing a blank wall. The sky is very dark. Fear is seen in everyone’s eyes. But we cannot allow this deadly virus, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), to finish us all. We need to compose ourselves, gather our thoughts, and take the necessary steps.

Listen to the singular call: Please stay at home.

Even countries with world-class health care system like Italy are getting more desperate. This virus is not afraid of superpowers like America, China, Russia, Great Britain etcetera. It attacks everyone, rich or poor.

So please stay at home, because by so doing so, you are making a snappy salute to the fallen heroes in this battle, our doctors, nurses, yes, all our frontliners. Do not let their deaths go in vain. They fought valiantly, and died doing the duty they were sworn to uphold. They died for you and your loved ones. They left behind their families. Your family still have you.

Stay at home because it is the biggest, if not the only way we can defeat this virus. If fake news stops the moment we stop sharing it, this virus stops spreading the moment we stay at home.

Stay at home, and know that you are doing something patriotic. It is not a choice. It is a duty. In your lifetime, you may have already violated traffic rules, sold your votes, bribe a public official, cheated on your examinations, etcetera. But please, for now, even for now, do something good. Stay at home.

Stay at home and you will save lives, including yours.

I will not say our inconvenience is light. It is heavy. More than the physical, it challenges our mental or psychological strength. It is not the kind of life we are used to having, especially for us Filipinos. We are never distant. We visit our neighbors, our relatives, our classmates. Parties or all forms of gatherings are not a stranger to us. So social distancing shocks us all.

But the story is not just about that. There are many who are out in the streets not because they want to defy the governmental impositions, but because they want to survive. They have families back home.  And usually, these are the kind of people who cannot be on panic buying. They simply have no money to be able to buy what they need.

This is the reason the government came in as it should. We cannot talk of lockdown without asking whether people have food on their table. I believe the government is doing its utmost. Both the Senate and Congress have given the president emergency powers to better address the situation. Yes, everybody is getting impatient. That’s understandable.

In this battle, there is a bitter pill to swallow.

We must stay at home. /dbs