B.C.

By Netnet Camomot .

“Lunes, nang tayo’y magkakilala
Martes, nang tayo’y muling nagkita
Miyerkules, nagtapat ka ng ‘yong pag-ibig
Huwebes ay inibig din kita”

FOR a while there, the Inter-Agency Task Force’s (IATF) advisories for what it has classified as low-risk areas began to sound like Imelda Papin’s makabagbag-damdamin song.

Martes. The IATF announced low-risk areas won’t need any quarantine starting May 16 but should impose minimum health standards (stay home, handwashing, face masks, physical distancing).

Miyerkoles. The IATF said low-risk areas need a quarantine after all and called it the modified general community quarantine (MGCQ).

Huwebes. The IATF changed the MGCQ to GCQ since it had not yet prepared guidelines for the MGCQ.

Well, KISS—Keep It Simple and, uh, Scary. Let’s call it the new normal.

If you’re waiting to be as free as a bird soon, here’s the bad news: that’s not happening this year. Accept the fact that any kind of wishful thinking has to be immediately toned down by reality so you can move forward and survive amidst the pandemic.

It’s now business as usual even for some non-essential establishments as the government has resumed collecting taxes, banks have resumed collecting loan and credit card payments, and utility companies have resumed collecting bill payments. Operative words: resumed collecting. Yup, there is no rest for the weary.

By Friday, I have become familiar with the terms “case doubling time” and “critical care utilization rate” since Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno has been mentioning these in his daily press briefings. But I still have to be familiar with what they mean.

Whenever there’s a new Covid-19 patient in CDO, the Cagayanon would always ask for the patient’s name and address, like as if that information would make the other barangays in the city safe from Covid. Does the info encourage the nosy Cagayanon to visit the “safe” barangays? The advice for the non-essential citizen is to stay home. If you’re staying home, then there’s less worry on where you were at a particular time, in case that Covid patient and/or his family, close friends, and colleagues were there, too, at that time.

Contact tracing has been one of the city’s preventive measures in containing the spread of Covid. Try to list down the names and addresses of the people you’ve been with since, say, March 14. If you’ve been staying home, then that’s an easy task. But if you’ve left the house for essential work and errands, then that list can be complicated. How much more if you’ve ignored warnings and have been partying like as if it’s another day in paradise.

Staying home simplified your life before corona (B.C.) and the more it simplifies your life now during corona.

Yes, B.C. has a new meaning now.

Do you still remember how life was B.C.? And that’s exactly how it was—busy. Busy working at the office, busy meeting up with friends, busy shopping, busy partying, busy hopping from one venue to another. You had a daily itinerary.

Now, your planner—that is, if you’re still using one—has reminders on work-related to-do lists and deadlines, and due dates for tax, bank loan, credit card, and other bills payments. You can’t even remember what day it is today.

It was raining cows and carabaos on Friday night—or was that Saturday dawn?—and the first thought that came to mind was, What if? CDO has its own share of flood-prone areas. Unlike the Bureau of Internal Revenue, banks, and utility and telecommunications companies, the weather can’t postpone payment due dates, er, typhoons.

Pinas has only two seasons—wet and dry. With the wet sometimes managing to insert itself into the dry season, much like what some lovers do to spice up a hopeless relationship. Hehe.

For a while there, some people thought that the hot weather could stop the deadly virus from spreading. But Pinas’s cases have been increasing despite the feels-like-45-degrees-Celsius weather, somehow proving that this virus does not depend on the weather-weather-lang phenomenon.

Flattening the curve is supposed to include the bilbil but gyms remain closed while CDO is under GCQ. And even if they’re allowed to open, I don’t know how the praning exerciser can work out inside a gym. If only handwashing can be a form of exercise, huh? If you’re washing your hands for 100 times daily, that’s 2,000 seconds or 33.33 minutes! Wow! Biceps and triceps pa more!

Contrary to popular belief—haha—I don’t exercise daily. There are times when watching DJ Loonyo’s Facebook Live vlog is more interesting than dancing to a YouTube Zumba video where the trainer keeps mentioning “waistline” like as if that’s enough to convince me to skip dinner and learn how to hula-hoop a la Sheryl Cruz.

Cruz is 46 years old. With a 26-inch waistline. If you’re the same age and a waistline is more like a mystery to you, it’s okay—you’re flattening the most important curve, anyway, by staying home.

While writing this, I could see from the room with a view two toy cars driven by two cute kids, with their nannies respectfully walking behind them. All of them are not wearing face masks. I guess it’s time for me to apply as the village’s face-mask police. Haha.

The world can return to normal only when everyone in this wonderful world and even the “aliens” in those unidentified flying objects have been vaccinated. If that Covid-19 vaccine remains an impossible dream, we may have to continue practicing the minimum health standards as we switch to the new normal.