Everyone is a frontliner!

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, I associated the term “frontliner” in war and politics, a rather limited setting. The soldiers in fields where opposing armies battle are called frontliners. Their cause is the fatherland. The battlegrounds are more defined and the warring soldiers clearly identified. In less brutal environment, campaigners from opposing political parties who urge voters to cast their ballots for their candidates are also called as frontliners and they fight for known political leaders. The areas of contest theoretically exist in the minds of political planners and their campaigners, not usually wearing uniforms, are less identifiable.

 Today, in the context of COVID-19, we call as frontliners the men and women who aren’t necessarily soldiers and campaigners but just the same, they wage some kind of war. Fighting for the country isn’t their cause, neither do they serve politicians. They are mainly the personnel in hospital and medical centers directly involved in attending to patients like the doctors, nurses, medical technologists, laboratory technicians, and hospital orderlies as well as those people indirectly connected in the treatment of patients such as those in the pharmacies and billing sections, housekeepers, janitors, and even security personnel. But because they are engaged in a form of warfare and in fact they are in direct contact with patients on a person-to-person basis, some of them pay with their lives as the ultimate price.

It must be very alarming to note that the efforts of our frontliners to combat this coronavirus is not succeeding. Here in our city, those infected by the disease has reached triple digits during the past few days with the number of deaths breaching the charts. The pandemic is still raging. We do not direct our attention to the over 100,000 Americans who died because of the virus in order to appease our alarm. That certainly is not the point. The issue for us to grapple with is the continued spread of the virus.

Health protocols have been ordained. Authorities are tireless, even relentless, in telling us what to do. We are told to wear masks (supposedly each time we go out of our homes), wash hands as often as possible (there are specific instructions on how to do it), and keep physical distancing. These are among the basic guidelines primarily designed to contain further infections. We switch our televisions on and we notice these reminders. Radio plugs air them quite regularly. Newspapers carry them in prominent spaces. If we really care to read and understand thoroughly these directives, we will come to realize that these are established not just for the acknowledged “frontliners” but for everyone to follow.

The battle zone is not drawn. There is no specific area where the virus can be found only. COVID-19 is almost all over the country. Therefore, everywhere is a front line. Necessarily, everyone, whether residing in gated subdivisions or in blighted communities, is involved. The risk in cities is the same risk in distant provinces. Indeed, everybody is a frontliner. The war against this pandemic is for all of us to wage. As we remember that our basic weapons are the health protocols, we must all fight as frontliners.