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“There is no place like home” – a common sentiment during these unusual and challenging times when a number of people find themselves away from their families – frontliners whose jobs require them to be away from home, and workers from out-of-town who unexpectedly find themselves stranded with the implementation of the quarantine. While I, too, […]
Imagine a young nurse, cool and tip-top in a white scrub suit, surveying her anxious household before waving goodbye — generously, unflinchingly. Imagine that from an island barangay southeast of Manila, she heads into the mainland hospital wary of the unseen that this pandemic has brought every doorstep worldwide. Imagine that outside her house she is […]
Unprecedented, trying, uncertain times. The COVID-19 pandemic and the drastic changes it is bringing with it at its wake are described in bold statements but often through an impersonal, third-person point of view. For frontline workers and those who are allowed to work outside, however, the present realities are far from being impersonal. Not when you […]
I handled Case No. 30 and Case No. 87. One is a labor case and the other is a case of discrimination by the local government where the person requesting assistance resides. When the “clients” were endorsed to me, I coordinated with them and we talked via Facebook Messenger call. Basic rule in legal counseling: ask […]
By the third week of the lockdown, we were already restless, bored, agitated. We had Netflix and banter with friends on Facebook to amuse ourselves with, but the daily news of death to Covid-19 patients, to attending doctors and nurses, the equally saddening plight of the homeless, the vulnerable and those struggling to make ends […]
People we assist are truthful about their situation and frank with their emotions. I was assigned to the case of a lady who is wife to a healthcare worker. As reply to my question where her husband was she said he went out to buy food, “Birthday niya kahapon pero late na nakauwi sa 16-hour shift. […]