JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

In my neighborhood I am well-acquainted with the barangay office’s public address system. Every night at 9:30 or so the barangay captain or their representative reminds everyone of the 10pm curfew for kids 17 and below. If any kids are caught on the street after 10, their parents will be penalized. There are periodic reminders about drinking outside, smoking in public, and illegal parking. I am reminded of those megaphone-toting traffic policemen in the late 80s, who gleefully insulted the pedestrians who were jaywalking or crossing the street while the lights were green. On one hand it’s unseemly to treat adults like children; on the other hand shaming works, for the ordinary people (hampas-lupa) anyway. Privilege, we are constantly reminded, inoculates the powerful against shame.

When lockdown began, the public announcements turned into entreaties to please stay inside your houses, please don’t let your children play on the street, please don’t block the road so the truck can pass, please don’t come to the barangay office we’ll come to you. The voices grow testier and testier, but so far no one has had a public freakout like those Italian mayors, whose operatic threats preserved on YouTube bring me so much joy (I grieve for Italy, but envy them their mayors from Fellini movies). “I will send the police to your party…with flamethrowers.” “This is not I Am Legend and you are not Will Smith.” “What the fuck do you need the hairdresser for? Who the fuck is even going to see you when the casket will be closed?” I find the messages from the barangay office echoing in our once-noisy streets quite comforting. I feel like someone’s in charge.

Another day in quarantine, another villain emerges: there are reports of health workers, our brave frontliners, being evicted by their landlords for fear of contagion. A valid fear, I have to admit—would you allow someone in your building who can infect you by touching the banister or coughing in the elevator? Our frontliners deserve better, and in these times we must stick together, but only metaphorically. My neurologist tells me that at St Luke’s QC the chapel has been converted into an extension ER for non-Covid 19 patients. He pointed out that the Catholic Church has room. And hospitals.

Now the Church is busy praying for its flock and feeding the poor, but perhaps they could allow their houses of worship, empty during this lockdown, to be used as temporary housing and facilities for the frontliners? And maybe San Juan de Dios and other Church-run hospitals could install Covid-19 testing equipment? If there ever was a “No room at the inn” situation, this is it.

I am guessing that domestic violence and mental health issues have intensified under lockdown. (And has anyone checked on the situation of the people who own the term, the prisoners in our jails?) My friend lives in a large house with her bipolar/schizophrenic aunt and a maid. The aunt is not violent, but she is unstable even while heavily-medicated. Her two grown children have families of their own; in the Filipino tradition her care has been assigned to the niece who is single. The logic being: Since you have chosen freedom from marriage and children, you have the time to look after a relative.

The schizophrenic aunt has killed two of my friend’s cats. She had an appointment with her psychiatrist this week, which was cancelled by the quarantine. Now she endangers the sanity of my friend. Tonight she lay on the kitchen floor demanding that her children be summoned to take her away from there. Even if they could get through the checkpoints, they don’t want to. My friend, being accustomed to these bursts of melodrama, paid her no mind. Eventually the aunt stopped and went to her room.

Another day in lockdown, twenty (please, no more than that) to go.