A transformational moment

Holy Week or Semana Santa in our country has always been observed with a procession of palm fronds on Palm Sunday, somber reflections on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, and the celebration of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

With last year’s quarantine restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to observe the traditional public ceremonies and rituals of Holy Week using the online platform in the safety of our homes. This year, we find ourselves in the same situation.

The only time the Philippines had no public celebration of Holy Week was during World War II, according to the Union of Catholic Asian News. The Japanese imperial forces banned any form of public worship, treating any form of religious gathering as a defiance to the authority of the emperor. Also around this time of the month 79 years ago, Japanese air and artillery attacks continued to pound Filipino and American Allied forces retreating to a final defensive position in Bataan.

When I was a child, I’ve always wondered how it is to live in a world war. Not that I wish to experience one in my lifetime, but the wartime stories from my grandmother captured my imagination. Much of my respect of her generation came from those tales of the extraordinary hardships they had to endure during the war. Families ran to the thickly-forested hills and live there for quite some time to protect the women and children from the Japanese invaders. The men risked their lives watching over the family properties that were left behind, while many others participated in the guerrilla movement one way or another.

History teaches us that a great crisis always has a way of remolding a generation into greatness. I believe that this COVID-19 pandemic presents our generation an opportunity for great transformation.

If you haven’t realized it yet, there is still no end in sight, at least in the near future, for COVID-19. Due to the inequities and inefficiencies of what is supposed to be a massive, global vaccine rollout, new variants of the coronavirus continue to emerge in the unprotected bodies of many people living in areas where the infection is still spreading widely.

Call me a bearer of gloom but I’d rather call the situation as it is rather than give any false hope. We don’t have to wait for the experts to tell us that the variants have become not only more transmissible but also more severe in a growing number of patients. Say what you want about the “lucky” majority who experience only mild symptoms. There is nothing lucky about being quarantined for 14 days in an economy that demands you to work in order for your family to survive. There is nothing lucky about playing Russian roulette with this virus.

Given the present evolutionary trajectory of SARS-COV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, Bloomberg’s Andreas Kluth warns that we may never go back to normal. ““We’re in for seemingly endless cycles of outbreaks and remissions, social restrictions and relaxations, lockdowns and reopenings. At least in rich countries, we will probably get vaccinated a couple of times a year, against the latest variant in circulation, but never fast or comprehensively enough to achieve herd immunity,” Kluth wrote.

We must face this reality and act with courage. There will be a new world, and it’s up to you if you’d be part of that transformation or otherwise stick to your old ways. As Kluth wrote: “Our Brave New World needn’t be dystopian. But it won’t look anything like the old world.”