I laughed out loud when I saw a letter from a reader describing me and Carla as “brave and smart”! Well, it was actually a big shot in our arms and almost made us forget the terrible days of worry and anxiety over the fate of the DAILY STAR at the onset of this pandemic that had thrown the entire world into panic. I think desperate and hopeless would have been the right words to describe us, but since I always have a very strong faith in prayer, knowing that it was the main thing that had kept us going all those 38, going on 39 years, so I knew that the Good Lord would not abandon us this time. But we still continue praying for His guidance that He has never failed us.
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Because I confess that when those awful days came, “smart and brave” were hardly the words you could apply to us but “stricken and hopeless,” as if the world was coming down on us. I don’t dare ask someone how many buckets of tears Carla shed and how many novenas and petitions I had sent up to all my “suki” Saints and God the Father Himself, reminding Him that He had blessed us with his favor all these years, how could He abandon us now? However, I must be frank with all our readers and advertisers, that it is still touch-and-go for us until now, so we are very grateful to those who continue to patronize us with their advertisements which we know also work very well for them!
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How can we keep our minds off the persistent attacks of this virus from China that has apparently not spared any country, and most especially the biggest and most prosperous ones? It seem hard to believe that until now, a cure or vaccine to counter it has not yet been approved for international introduction. Yes, there are reports of these being developed in Russia and in the U.S. but their products are still to be tested. What about China, the source of it all, what have its medical experts been doing? Haven’t they done studies on those bats in Wuhan that supposedly introduced that virus? Or have they, but are not sharing it with the world?
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But a bad time for the United States to be embroiled in problems of racism that I think was aroused by the death of a black man named George Lloyd for which a policeman has been charged in court. That drewprotests and developed the slogan “Black Lives Matter”, which has become a mantra for protestors and rioters. It is all so disheartening, when our attention should be focused more on this pandemic that does not seem to respond to any medicine yet discovered. Me, I am very hopeful that the time will come – some countries have claimed to produce one before this year ends, and so be it.
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Another problem that is an outcome of this pandemic involves transportation. Reports yesterday said the U.S. airlines have been cutting staff, and in the United States alone the United Airlines had to let go – whether permanently or temporarily – no less than 16,000 employees! I wonder about our local ones, like the Philippine Airlines, Cebu Pacific and the others – how are they coping? I know they had quite a lot of passengers when our overseas workers had to be flown home, but now that there are less returning, how are they doing? I also saw a report that the automobile company, Ford, has trimmed off 1,000 employees.
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Some companies worldwide are offering early retirement to their workers, probably in fear of not earning enough to maintain them until things get better. Well, whatever retirement benefits they get will probably not suffice to keep them going until things return to normal and opportunities for jobs may come up. Meanwhile, I noted that in Bacolod, people are quite obedient in observing curfew, but in some cities, teenagers and even children are the frequent violators so their local governments have issued regulations that parents of the violators will also be arrested. Is that legal?
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By the way, it had to take the COVID guru, Dr. AnthoniFauci to point that a vaccine is not a cure, but a preventive. I guess some people have a wrong idea about it, especially when reports kept coming from several areas about vaccines having been produced and will be available worldwide before the year is over. Dr. Fauci stressed that it is a preventive, just like the shots given to children to prevent them from getting infected with childhood diseases like chicken pox, measles, and the like.
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I was quite upset when I heard that Mrs. Olive Yanson, the matriarch behind the Ceres Liner company of buses operating in Negros and other parts of the country has been airlifted to a Manila hospital after testing positive for the virus. Olive is a truly wonderful woman, so simple and accommodating, who, despite the success and her husband, the late Ricardo Yanson have attained, has remained the simple, friendly and unassuming person she had always been. I hope she gets to know that I am praying very hard for her recovery … May God bless and heal her with early recovery.*
