AS USELESS, there will always be two sides to a story, and perhaps even more. Here in Davao City, just as soon as the announcement to re-impose the 7pm to 5am curfew reached the social media hotbeds, an avalanche of reactions came crashing down the said feeds, and the net was ablaze.
At first, one angry young man had cried out blaming the government for taking away their old life, with it using fear as a tool in order to control everyone. (Must be one of those displaced activists). “How will the economy survive?”, posted another, while a third decried the curfew’s effect on taxi drivers’ already-meager earnings.
However, if one tried to read through all the comments, it would be noted that, among the hundreds, there is an almost even number that took the pros and cons in the issue. For those who take profiling seriously, as social scientists would, it’s almost fun when one sifts through the different demographics of the participants, er commenters. While the younger ones, more prone to night outs with friends, go against the harsh curfew regulations, the older ones, agree with it, just to get this dang virus out completely and take their lives back. Through it all though, as what has always been common fare with practically most of the online reparté, a lot of heckling or teasing is constantly thrown back and forth, thereby coloring the comments somewhat and taking the sting out of them a bit.
Despite all these, the furor raised by segments of the local residents over curfew merely hints at the uncertainty lying beneath the surface. I am sure that it has never been lost in everybody’s mind that the world will again reopen someday. The only question is when. Still, we dream of that world, and struggle to remain positive. Call it what you like, New Normal, new Eden, or new Bankerohan, just as long as it is finally opened, of course without Covid, then we’re all good!
It could probably be like as before, close to or far from it, but at least, we can again attend our family members’ birthday parties. At this, I am pretty sure that we have missed a lot of those, especially for those belonging to a large clan. Then, we could head out to visit our friends whom we’ve also not seen for almost a year. We can finally go back to work, and even take vacations, like a lot of us used to do in the old life that covid (not government) has taken away.
Alas, all this dream thought about a return to more normal times can likewise lead us to overthink and become careless. Someone had said, that, while we have surely more to endure in the days ahead, better days are sure to come but we cannot force it. Sadly, force it we did, and as I have written the last time: It is back to square one. Do not pass Go. If one does and then breaks the curfew, go straight to jail.
