Aghast in August
Published Aug 7, 2021 12:02 am
MEDIUM RARE
Jullie Y. Daza
What a way to “welcome” ECQ! Where was everybody going? When a solo driver finally reached home, he proclaimed, “It’s Christmas Eve! Everyone’s out on the street!” Right on cue, he heard TV reporters echoing his feelings, calling the non-event “bisperas ng ECQ.”
Professional beggars were the only ones who were smart enough to call it a day. Even before the skies would darken, they had quit the center islands that are their turf to go home and prepare for the arrival in six hours of the great and fearsome ECQ . Leaving the streets, roads, and traffic jams to the exasperated passengers of their exhausted cars, humans and machines caught by surprise (as much as a non-surprise, given the national habit to do things at the last minute before a celebration or, as in this case, a lockdown).
As Chief PNP Guillermo Eleazar expressed it so candidly, in defense of the new rule to consider every town and city in the NCR its own “tiny bubble” where no border crossings are allowed: “Why do you have to drive to the next city to buy groceries if it’s only groceries you intend to buy?” How do you reason against such plain logic?
I was among those taken aback by such a drastic regulation – did I hear someone say “strangulation”? – given the short time, two days, that PNP had to prepare themselves and us before the “hard ECQ” took effect yesterday.
One person whose wish has been granted is Henry Lim Bon Liong, president of FFCCCII (Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc.), who told Peter Musngi: “Let the lockdown happen during the Ghost Month (Aug. 8-Sept. 6), but spare the last quarter.”
To the few who are still aghast over the childlike superstition of keeping the Ghost Month inconspicuous and out of sight and earshot of the mischievous spirits who roam Earth once a year, Henry’s message is that the strictest quarantine measures might as well coincide with Ghost Month, when the stock market slows down, no contracts are signed, IPO’s are reset (was it Del Monte that postponed their IPO?), weddings and new projects are shelved, and no one moves to a new address.
To each his own folly. Folly?
Jullie Y. Daza
What a way to “welcome” ECQ! Where was everybody going? When a solo driver finally reached home, he proclaimed, “It’s Christmas Eve! Everyone’s out on the street!” Right on cue, he heard TV reporters echoing his feelings, calling the non-event “bisperas ng ECQ.”
Professional beggars were the only ones who were smart enough to call it a day. Even before the skies would darken, they had quit the center islands that are their turf to go home and prepare for the arrival in six hours of the great and fearsome ECQ . Leaving the streets, roads, and traffic jams to the exasperated passengers of their exhausted cars, humans and machines caught by surprise (as much as a non-surprise, given the national habit to do things at the last minute before a celebration or, as in this case, a lockdown).
As Chief PNP Guillermo Eleazar expressed it so candidly, in defense of the new rule to consider every town and city in the NCR its own “tiny bubble” where no border crossings are allowed: “Why do you have to drive to the next city to buy groceries if it’s only groceries you intend to buy?” How do you reason against such plain logic?
I was among those taken aback by such a drastic regulation – did I hear someone say “strangulation”? – given the short time, two days, that PNP had to prepare themselves and us before the “hard ECQ” took effect yesterday.
One person whose wish has been granted is Henry Lim Bon Liong, president of FFCCCII (Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Inc.), who told Peter Musngi: “Let the lockdown happen during the Ghost Month (Aug. 8-Sept. 6), but spare the last quarter.”
To the few who are still aghast over the childlike superstition of keeping the Ghost Month inconspicuous and out of sight and earshot of the mischievous spirits who roam Earth once a year, Henry’s message is that the strictest quarantine measures might as well coincide with Ghost Month, when the stock market slows down, no contracts are signed, IPO’s are reset (was it Del Monte that postponed their IPO?), weddings and new projects are shelved, and no one moves to a new address.
To each his own folly. Folly?