MGCQ still has a Q, it is not HSWNQ

I am pretty sure people in areas, including my Cebu, that have now been placed under MGCQ, the most relaxed among the Qs, are getting giddy with excitement. This status of quarantine means more freedom for more people to go to more places and do more things. I am happy for them. But I fear for them, as well. In fact, it could be more of the latter than the former.

MGCQ, if you look carefully, still has a Q. And that Q still means quarantine. And quarantine, in these times, can only mean there is something to guard against, to be wary of, to isolate ourselves from. The coronavirus responsible for all of these Qs to be foisted upon us is still very much around. It may have been slowed, but it has not been licked.

The only time when we can truly drop our vigilance and do away with health protocols is when the government sounds the all clear and brings us down to HSWNQ or Haay Salamat Wala Nay Quarantine. And the only time the government can do that is when the coronavirus shall have made its unlamented exit, or at least reduced to a mere manageable nuisance.

But as of now the Q is still very evident in our status. We cannot go overboard in freedom's abandon because there is yet no freedom to talk about, much less savor the moment with. All we have is a loosening of the shackles, a lengthening of the chain. We remain the prisoner of the virus, captive to its capricious randomness.

In Cebu City, it is good that the officials seem to have every intension of keeping the health protocols in place. They apparently have not forgotten the lessons painfully learned when first the city was relaxed, only to be promptly reverted to strictness because the Cebuanos crashed the gates in their wild abandon.

We do not want a "hatag-bawi" or first-you-giveth-then-you-taketh situation. That can be a very sapping and draining situation for every aspect of the human condition, whether mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and even economical. If we have been relaxed, everyone must cooperate to make sure getting relaxed is forever. For there is no going back. We cannot afford to go back.

We cannot be like America where personal freedoms are held in higher regard than personal safety. The runaway numbers in America depicting the number of cases suggest the tremendous cost that such a sad and unfortunate country is currently paying to the global coronavirus toll. It is one distinction the ever impressionable Filipinos must learn never to emulate.

So, okay, the MGCQ and all that it entails must be savored to the limits of practical reality. Note that well --- practical reality. That means there are still DON'Ts among the DOs. And if this is the new normal even after the Qs, or when we are finally under HSWNQ, then let us all still be happy and thankful for what we have and have been given. But remember, to be happy and thankful, we first need to be survivors.