THE unnumbered hardships of living in a permanent state of confinement because of the coronavirus are somehow more bearable if the patient citizen sees that the elected politicians behave similarly. This has not been the case recently. While most of the population cannot have access to testing kits even when showing symptoms, a group of politicians and their families behaved clannishly and got themselves tested unnecessarily. As a response to criticism and in trying to explain that there was no VIP treatment, the Department of Health has publicly acknowledged that it accords courtesy “to officials holding positions of national security and public health.” So, yes, the complaining Filipino citizens are right because courtesy is just a euphemism for “VIP treatment,” which does not sound so good.
We read or watch the news now even more often than usual because we spend so much time at home connected to the internet. We then get informed about a homeless woman being arrested for actually sleeping in the street or two health workers getting fined for riding a motorbike, which is their only means to get to work. And then we got to know about the case of a very well-known politician, infected by the coronavirus, putting in danger the lives of frontliners in a hospital and in a supermarket. On these occasions, an unconvincing apology seems to suffice to escape the action of justice.
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