Down by Denial

I heard about this guy who according to his neighbors, believes that Covid is nothing but a big scheme to scam our skins off. (kwarta kwarta lang, he would reportedly say.) I was told that a few days ago, he accompanied a friend to get tested. Apparently, the friend had to be tested because of being suspected to have Covid. Apparently, that friend had a probable chance of already having the virus, so accompanying him may not have been a good idea. Yes, friendship is good; but I guess could go to the testing center by himself just fine. A day later, we passed by that guy’s house, and hanging outside was a signboard that said “House Lockdown”.

Down by denial.

I was told about this administrator who announced suspension of work transactions at the office for a few days. That’s an employee’s dream come true. In some respects, that was a discreet lockdown; except that it was not called so; a similar face going by a different name. There was no reason given for this so-called suspension of operations. Employees were just simply directed not to report for duty for a given period of time. That sounded suspicious but why bother, let’s just go home.

It turns out that a few of the employees have tested positive. The virus has manage to creep to a few other officemates. Sadly, one employee had unknowingly infected all the children, then the spouse. Now, it’s all in the family. Others from the office, I heard, have been having difficulty breathing. Transmission in the workplace could have been prevented because at this time, the office was in between projects (sort of like a TV show which just concluded a season, and is waiting for the new season to begin); so these guys didn’t really have to come in physical contact with each other. But under the administrator’s directions, they had to prepare a month early before the start of the next project. Now, a whole family is in hospital confinement, and others could probably be infected, and the administrator has been keeping mum about it, seemingly telling everyone to just hush, as if no disaster has descended upon them, as if everything is okay.

Down by denial.

Have you heard the news? It’s finally come here. We don’t just hear about it on the news anymore. We have it around here. Would you believe it? We used to just hear about it on national TV or on the Internet, now, it’s here. The Delta variant is here. People freak out because they say one could get this variant of the virus just by merely passing by an infected individual. If your opponent starts to hit you harder, human nature dictates for you to defend yourself even harder. So, how do local governments resolve to counterattack against this conquest. I wait for a cry of battle… and I hear crickets. It seems that we should just move along with usual business without extra heightened measure to seek shelter from a probable stronger storm, a denial of demand for defense.

Down by denial.

In the past weeks, we have witnessed tragedy upon tragedy as official reports have exposed mismanagement of funds of some government agencies. At the forefront is the Department of Health with Secretary Francisco Duque being accused of the poor utilization of funds. Blame is pinned on inadequate documents, inefficiently supported papers and reports. Fault has been fingered towards hospital administrators who allegedly should have spent the funds right. Juxtaposed in this chaos are threats of mass resignation of health workers. (Don’t you think the President should have rewarded the health workers as much as he did the military and the police?) This is just so sad because it is rubbing salt on our bruises. It has been extremely bad enough that we have been knocked down with lockdown and the virus, then we’re kicked against the gut and stomped on with this devilish desecration; a denial of responsibility, a denial of liberality.

Down by denial.

In the recent years, there have been buzz of the influence of a certain senator on government contracts. We heard something something about the franchise of passenger motorcycles in Manila. Then, there is this mystery of why we can’t seem to let go of these face shields which seems to be exclusive in the Philippines, and which doesn’t really prove to be effective since we keep breaking our own records for number of daily cases. There seems to be a denial of necessity, of integrity.

Down by denial.

“whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him Matthew 10:33…”