“After the pandemic.”
It’s such a nice thing to think about – the things we’d do once the lockdown is over, the places we’ll go to; the normalcy we’ll have once again. It’s comforting in times like this to remind ourselves that there’s something to look forward to.
But what is there to look forward to?
The idea of looking past the current crisis and looking forward to what lies ahead comes from a space of wishing that things were back to the way they were. Who doesn’t want to freely go outside again? Who doesn’t want to go back to living?
But what was life before the pandemic?
Let’s not forget the Duterte administration’s tepid response to COVID-19. Let’s not forget how DOH Secretary Duque dismissed calls of a travel ban because of how it will ruin relations with China. Let’s not forget how Duterte called the coronavirus “an idiot” before telling the Filipino people that they can just shrug it off.
Let’s not forget what brought us here in the first place – 4 years of executive powergrabs resulting in a Cabinet filled with ex-generals and zero experts. A judiciary and a legislative branch that has been beaten down by a strongman to the point where the phrase “checks and balances” don’t mean anything.
We musn’t forget how Duterte has, since the start of his presidency, clung to the military for any and all solutions – from Martial Law in Mindanao, to Memorandum Order 32 and Oplan Sauron, to Executive Order 70 and Oplan Kapanatagan.
Quite frankly, wishing for things to go back to as they were before the pandemic comes from a position of privilege and petit bourgeois exclusivity. The Philippines before the COVID-19 lockdown was a country where 30,000 people have died due to a failed drug war, where 247 farmers have been killed fighting for their rights, where journalists like Frenchie Mae Cumpio are arrested in the dead of night, where human rights defenders and activists daily receive threats for trying to defend people’s rights – to ask to return to this “lofty arrangement” is nothing short of insulting. (READ: Lives in danger as red-tagging campaign intensifies)
And what of life during the pandemic? Human rights violations continue on in Quezon despite the lockdown. A barangay captain in Sta. Cruz, Laguna thought it was a good idea to put people in a dog cage.
People like Senator Koko Pimentel have continued to wave around their unearned privilege by putting others at risk, while PUI’s die without ever knowing if it was due to COVID-19. Frontliners like Dr Raul Jara have sacrificed their lives just so officials like Mayor Joy Belmonte of Quezon City or Mel Gecolea of Cabuyao, Laguna could continue to be indifferent to their constituents.
The worst thing is that there might not even be a life after the pandemic. Dr Bruce Aylward, senior adviser to the Director-General of the World Health Organization, thinks that one possibility is COVID-19 becoming a “seasonal” disease like the flu. For a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country like ours with inadequate health and community infrastructure, that is devastating.
We have to rethink what “after the pandemic” means. We can’t simply ask for things to go back to the way they were – we must ask for change. This pandemic has laid bare even more the insecurities and failures of the current system strangling Philippine society, and the only conclusion is that something fundamental needs to be reworked.
After the pandemic, we must rise up and work towards a better society. We must follow “After the pandemic,” with “we will wage revolution.” – Rappler.com