THE coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 213,824 people in the world, and has changed life as we knew it before its spread was initially reported in January 2020.
In an effort to stop the spread of the virus, many governments around the world have enforced lockdowns, quarantines and shelter-in-place orders, forcing many businesses, schools, and public services to close and mandating people to stay-at-home or work from home, while most have to be laid off or be furloughed for an indefinite period of time.
The pandemic also affects not just the economy of every family, every city, every nation, but of the whole world in this interrelated global community.
These social distancing safety measures have totally shaken and threatened the basic needs of many families, disrupting schools, and livelihoods. For a privileged few, the effect was not as ominous — it is just an inconvenience from not getting their hair or nails done, not being able to shop, not being able to eat out, party, or travel, and for most, boredom. All of these to save lives.
Amid the anxieties and challenges to our comfort zone coming from the many layers of uncertainty, some people have been protesting against social distance safety measures, focusing on financial losses, downplaying the threat to life of the pandemic, thereby forcing the community to be more vulnerable just so these people may be able to “go back to normal” despite the reality that the threat to life remains.
We have become stubborn and demand to have our “civil liberties” back, forgetting that we are in a war — war against the invisible but fatal common enemy, and that during wartime, we give up most of these civil liberties because our primary goal as one nation, as one world, is to LIVE.
We forget that while we have rights and liberties, our liberty ends when we encroach in the rights of other people.
This is what is happening right now. We become blind to the fact that not complying to social distance safety measures mean we encroach on the rights of other people to be safe and alive, just because we allow our selfishness to determine that these so-called “rights” are more important than the rights of others to be safe and to live during this war against the pandemic.
Many forget that we are in this together and that not acting as one just impedes our healing, prolonging our agony and pain when the virus spread resurges. This disregard causes us to focus on what is good for us and us alone, forgetting the rest of our people, when in fact, the affliction and infirmity of one become an affliction and infirmity of all during a pandemic. In the end, we all lose the battle because we fail to think beyond our own needs, wants, and interest.
Pope Francis calls this the “virus of selfish indifference.”
“Now, while we are looking forward to a slow and arduous recovery from the pandemic, there is a danger that we will forget those who are left behind. The risk is that we may then be struck by an even worse virus, that of selfish indifference. A virus spread by the thought that life is better if it is better for me, and that everything will be fine if it is fine for me. It begins there and ends up selecting one person over another, discarding the poor, and sacrificing those left behind on the altar of progress. The present pandemic, however, reminds us that there are no differences or borders between those who suffer. We are all frail, all equal, all precious.”
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Gel Santos Relos has been in news, talk, public service and educational broadcasting since 1989 with ABS-CBN and is now serving the Filipino audience using different platforms, including digital broadcasting, and print, and is working on a new public service program for the community. You may contact her through email at [email protected], or send her a message via Facebook at Facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos.
