EDITORIAL - The other unsung heroes we should thank

Not too long ago, just after COVID-19 became a full-blown crisis, someone remarked that finally ordinary people like policemen, medical personnel, nurses, store clerks, deliverymen, and cashiers have finally become more important than athletes, actors, singers, and those in the entertainment industry.

This cannot be more true right now.

With Cebu City heading into Enhanced Community Quarantine, you can expect almost everything to be shut down. Everything except for some services deemed still necessary for the survival of the city like hospitals, clinics, laboratories, pharmacies, drugs stores, gas stations, cargo handling firms, and other such vital operations.

In addition to all those already working in the healthcare sector, this means people like store clerks, deliverymen, cargo handlers, gas pump attendants, and many others doing such jobs will become our new heroes.

These will include barangay tanods, security personnel, and other force multipliers who have to make sure the laws are followed.

They had to work while majority of us had to stay home following government orders. And now, despite this Enhanced Community Quarantine, many of them still have to go on doing so.

While the tasks of personnel like these don’t involve directly fighting the COVID-19 infection or caring for those who have been exposed to the virus, what they do will make sure the city stays alive, even as it goes into a sort of hibernation.

Despite that, they will also have risks of infection because they will now be the ones who are out there to deal with others, as the rest of us are cocooned in our own homes.

In actuality, people like these have been heroes for some time, we just didn’t notice it amid the chaos, confusion, and anxiety brought about by the COVID-19 crisis.

So, to those who do the jobs that made sure others could be provided for, get what they need, and when they needed them, we say thank you and keep yourself safe in these troubled times.