Category: Life & Love
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Malawak na tanawin
Tuyong pilapil tuwing tag-araw
Buhay nayon ay payak lang
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Mainit na topic ngayon ang class opening sa August 24, 2020. Ito ay sa kabila ng banta ng covid-19. Dahil dito, inihahanda na ng mga paaralan ang online class para sa mga mag-aaral. Ang tanong, ready ka na ba sa online class? Pero bago mo sagutin yan, ipaliwanag muna natin kung ano nga ba ang online class.
Sa regular class, ang mga mag-aaral ay inaasahang pumasok sa paaralan para turuan ng mga guro. Dahil sa kakulangan ng pasilidad, kahit ang mga pribadong paaralan ay napipilitang hatiin ang bilang ng mga mag-aaral kaya mayroong pumapasok ng pang-umaga at meron ding panghapon. May mga paaralang dikit-dikit ang upuan para mapagkasya ang mga bata. Bago nangyari ang covid-19 na ito, ang tanging magagawa ng magulang para hindi makahawa ang anak nilang sinisipon o inuubo ay ang huwag ng papasukin muna. Pero may mga magulang at bata na sadyang competitive at talaga namang papasok pa din kahit masama ang pakiramdam huwag lang mapag-iwanan sa lessons. Dahil sa mga limitasyong ito at dahil na din sa hindi pa napupuksa ang pandemya, dalawang bagay ang mainit na pinagdedebatehan ngayon ng mga magulang: online class ba o ipagpaliban ang pasukan hanggang hindi pa available ang vaccine.
Taliwas sa regular class, ang online class ay maaring mahati sa dalawang kategorya ayon sa aking mga nababasa at karanasan na din:
1. 100% Online Class– sa 100% online class, tuloy lang ang buhay. Maglo-log in ang mga bata sa online class website para ma-monitor pa din ang attendance. Dahil online na, kaya nang guro na pagsabay-sabayin ang klase nya; wala ng pang-umaga at wala ng panghapon. Ang graded recitation ay posibleng gawin sa Google Meet kung hindi kaya ng Zoom. Mainam ang ganitong klase ng online class sa mga batang 10 taon gulang pataas dahil hindi na sila intimidated sa teknolohiya kumpara sa mga mas maliliit na bata. Maganda ang set up ng 100% online class kung ang bata ay may kanya-kanyang laptop dahil interactive ang klase. Maganda ang set up na ito kung sapat ang luwag ng bahay ng mga bata para hindi maabala ang bawat isa. At maganda sana ito kung ang internet speed ng bata ay 5Mbps man lang. Ang tanong, ready ka na ba sa ganitong set up?
2. Home Schooling Set Up– online education pa din ito pero very minimal ang interface sa mga teacher; sabihin na nating nasa 25% lang. Sa home schooling set up, may mga guro pa din kada subject pero ang lessons ay ida-download sa online schooling website. Sa home schooling set up, hindi kinakailangan lagi ng internet. Basta may printer ka, ipi-print mo lang ang lessons sabay paturo sa magulang o kung kaya nyo, sa tutor. Ang kagandahan ng home schooling set up, flexible ang oras basta sa loob ng isang linggo, naipasa mo na ang kinakailangang lessons. Ang problema dito ay kung 5 ang anak mo na may 8 subject. Pagtyatyagaan mong aralin ang 40 subjects para sa kanila. Ang mas masakit nito para sa bata ay kung walang tyaga o walang oras ang mga magulang na turuan sila. Ready ka na ba sa home schooling set up?
Elementarya pa lang yang sinasabi ko dahil na din sa may mga anak akong nasa elementarya pa lang. Ibang kaso kapag nasa mataas na paaralan na (high school) at kolehiyo. Halimbawa, sa Home Economics (meron pa ba nun?) na subject, paano masasabi ni Ma’am at Sir na pasado ang pananahi ko o pagkakarpintero kung hindi naman nya aktwal na nakita? Paano masasabi ni Sir sa isang dentistry student na tama ang pagkakabunot nya ng ngipin?
Sa madaling salita, hindi lahat ng subjects ay pwede o kayang pag-aralan sa online lang. So, anong mga subjects ang ire-retain at ano ang hindi muna ipapakuha? Hindi ba dapat sa ngayon ay napag-uusapan na kung ano ang magiging guideline sa August 24 na pasukan? Mababawasan ba ang bayarin o baka hindi na maningil ng miscellaneous fee? Ano ang mangyayari sa mga guro sakaling hindi matuloy ang pasukan?
Talagang mabangis ang covid-19. Hindi lamang kabuhayan ang inabala kung hindi pati pangarap ng ating mga kabataan.
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I’ve been documenting my daily musings on Facebook since 2016. Nothing special;I just want to end my day thanking God and then resolving my issues by trying to see the good in every bad situation that I might have experienced during that day.
Please take note that the attached file is only 7 out of the 365 days; I just tried my artistic inclination. I will try to finish this within the year.
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Today is the 52nd day of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon. Some areas have been given a general community quarantine because of the controlled Covid-19 cases but most areas are still under ECQ (enhanced community quarantine). The IATF (Inter-Agency Task Force) would have to assess if more areas would be given a GCQ status by May 15th.
Because “freedom” on May 16 is a little impossible on some areas like the National Capital Region (NCR) and Central Luzon, people are getting worried about their fate on the coming days. On the other hand, prioritizing public health and safety is just right if the Covid cases are still high in an area.
There is hope after the pandemic. I’ve seen friends resort to first time online selling while they are on forced leave from work. Some neighbors offer delivery service to the elderly and immuno-compromised individuals for a little fee. Others cook and sell, their customers are those who are on work from home arrangement and are too busy to prepare food for the family. To beat the boredom, some people sign up to a youtube account in the hope to make it to vlogging. In short, I think that most people are on the survival mode nowadays.
The new normal is in and we are forced to adapt while the cure for Covid-19 is how many months away. After all these struggles, I believe that people will be more appreciative of life. People will be more compassionate. People will be more humble. Where do we go from here? To a better tomorrow, I suppose.
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I have always been vocal about my support for the lockdown because this is for everyone’s health and safety. As early as February when the first case emerged in January 30, 2020, I was among those who expressed our support for NCR’s lockdown (that’s why I was supportive of Mr. Salceda’s suggestion during the early days in March). To be honest, I did not expect that come March 16, all of Luzon would be put into an enhanced community quarantine (ECQ).
I vividly remember that Monday morning when the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) team were discussing about the community outbreak and whether our company was prepared for it. After lunch, an officemate who was on leave and watching the news messaged me that there was a possibility of a Luzon lockdown. My daughter normally leaves the house early during Mondays so I warned her and told her not to go to Quezon City because of the scoop. She ignored me and went ahead; those were the longest hours of my life feeling helpless and praying that she would come to her senses. After two hours, her text message seemed to be on a panic mode, I advised her to return home as soon as possible. It took her 4 hours to come back home because of the checkpoints and traffic. One worry down, I won!
We left the office at 7 PM with engineers asking me on what to do. Being like a mother or an elder sister to them, I assured them that there was nothing to be worried of. That should they failed to go home, we have the company dorms to accommodate them. I reached home at around 8PM, just ate a little dinner and then me and my husband hurried off to the nearest convenience store to buy canned goods. One worry down again!
Then before I slept, I told my father about the lockdown. He was not aware of it. I told him that a senior citizen like him would be prone to covid infection so he better listen to us. The next several days would be like a daily attendance check up with my father if he was home or not. By nature, he was very outgoing so I knew that the ECQ would hurt his social life.
The lockdown allowed me to take care of my kids while working from home. Our last approved work from home was April 4th so I had more time to check on my father until the day that he did not pick up my calls. I would not elaborate the details as they were still fresh but the bottomline was, the lockdown did not allow us to GRIEVE in a conventional way.
Because of the ECQ procedures, Papa had to be buried as soon as possible while I was viewing them from my cousin’s video call. I nearly collapsed because of too much pain and grief. To be honest, I am still in shock but not as shocked as two weeks ago. Me and my siblings are fortunate to have the love and sympathy of our relatives and friends. May God have mercy on us on these trying times.
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This week is the 4th week of the Luzon-wide quarantine. President Rodrigo Duterte announced last Monday that the ECQ would be extended up to April 30th. Per Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, government policy makers would have a daily assessment of our situation as basis if the government would lift the lockdown on April 30th or continue it. To date, we have 3,764 cases where majority of it are coming from the National Capital Region.
Coincidentally, it was also last Monday (April 6, 2020) when the excom announced that all but 20% of our work from home workforce would have to consume our leave credits while the company is running on skeletal force. This means that as of this writing, I am free as a bird blogging, researching about covid and relaxing while trying to find ways on what to do should the lockdown extends until I don’t know when.
I would have to be honest that the Wall Street Journal article “The Month Coronavirus Felled American Businesses” affected me when I read it before going to sleep last Monday. With barely four hours of sleep, I was not my usual self the next day. Good thing, I was able to nap after lunch and when I woke up, it seemed that I had a clearer picture of the things that I needed to prepare for the coming days.
Then I thought that in this time of crisis, the people need to feel that there is still hope. That we can rise above all of these and return to normalcy. Birthday celebrations, graduations and weddings were postponed. Even attending a relative’s wake became impossible due to the lockdown. Baguio City’s curve has been flattening for almost two weeks now. If they can do it, we can also do it here at the lowlands.
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Part 3:
A week into the enhanced community quarantine, boredom is still the farthest thing on my mind as I am busy working from home. I am working for a manufacturing company and we are still operational but we’re only using our skeletal workforce so the rest of us were either allowed to work from home or were using our leave credits to get paid. Those who are working from home like me submit our deliverables on a weekly basis. Tasks for the following week must be approved by the department head to check if they still merit a work from home.
I have no problem working from home; I do this even during the pre-covid19 days whenever I need to finish some analysis or report. I feel like I’m still in the office in my own tiny space as I’m not easily distracted by TV sounds or my children’s noise. This enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) is not a vacation— I am working, people are staying in-doors, some people are infected, some people could not survive.
There are actually two types of people in these whole ECQ thing: those who can afford to be put in quarantine for one month because they have the means and those who CANNOT survive a day without going out to earn money.
Type 1 people: Those who can afford to be put in quarantine:
– working from home
– has enough leave credits
– do not have enough leave credits but are loaded with cash and credit card
– do not have enough leave credits, not loaded with cash, no credit card BUT with family or friend to support them
Type 1 people do not worry about the quarantine period in the same way that Type 2 people do. Some of them just get bored and attempt to see how the world looks like now. Some of them become insensitive about posting stuff that Type 2 people would find offensive: ranting about being not able to attend parties and thinking about what food to cook for the next meal. Good thing if their Facebook or Instagram is set on private so that the whole boredom thing becomes an inside joke among their circle of friends.
Type 2 people: Those who cannot afford to be put in quarantine:
– daily-waged earner with no available leave credits
– monthly-waged earner with no available leave credits
– daily and monthly-waged earners who have no family or friends to support them
– street vendors, jeepney drivers, taxi drivers or basically those who live a life of “isang kahig, isang tuka”
Because we are too concerned about the spread of the virus, we need to watch out for Type 2 people who try to break the law by violating the ECQ guideline because they need to put food on the table. Food rations must be consistent and every barangay must know who these type 2 people are— the poorest of the poor, nasa laylayan ng lipunan.
The World of Second Chances 