De Castro, Aedrian Joshua O.

ArtsCom
S12-14

Comfort and Torment

At a time when the public is enjoined to make efforts to halt the rapid spread of COVID-19,
the crisis also brought attention to the deep divide between the poor and the privileged.
Unfortunately, as in many crises, the rich will remain rich and it is the poor who will suffer much
more—and it is already beginning.

High-income households have stocked up on food and other necessities. Meanwhile, poor
families were left at the mercy of promised government relief. Their lack of running water, access to
nutritious food, and dilapidated housing conditions makes advice such as handwashing, maintaining
good nutrition, and self-quarantine matters of privilege.

While the privileged are lying on their beds and complaining about their boredom because of
the quarantine, the poor are contesting the quarantine and risking their lives just to make ends meet.
These are people whose families survive on a daily basis. They will avoid tests and hospitals and will
continue selling on the sidewalks, collecting garbage, or whatever their source of meager income,
even while sick.

The rich can’t just wash their hands and say this is not their problem. Even if they imprison
themselves inside their gated villages, the virus will eventually reach them. In their offices they have
clerks, messengers, janitors; and in their villages they have servants, drivers, nannies, cooks, caddies,
umbrella girls, garbage collectors, gardeners. When the working class go home at night, they do not
go to gated villages unlike the privileged.

This all boils down to the Philippine government’s incompetence in handling the situation.
They can’t just tell the poor to cooperate especially if they don’t have access to social safety nets.
How will they self-quarantine in an informal settlement? Or in a household full of people? What will
business closures mean to daily or hourly waged workers? Will they continue paying their
employees? How will they stock up when they live from hand to mouth? How will they survive?