Almost a year after the pandemic the town of Odiongan recorded its first case of Covid-19. It was imported, and there was no panic because the positive case was isolated right away, but everything change almost a month ago when a local transmission occurred in the neighboring town, and then spread like a little fire in Odiongan town.

[Photo courtesy of Bong Gabutero de Villena]

There were already 86 cases, one death and lots of recoveries so far, but since the local transmission started government and other private offices were in skeletal work, some work from home as well, but those jobs that requires collecting of money and meeting a lot of clients everyday was halted until further notice while the contract tracing is still on-going.

[Photo courtesy of Jessa Famero Solano/Bulig sa Tabobo-an]

Filipinos are known to be hospitable and known to be resilient, with the current situation of the Philippines a community pantry emerged in Manila, neighboring cities and now even in Odiongan. Every barangay in the town has their own community pantry where anyone is free take food or household items they need and anyone could drop off whatever food/items they could donate.

The community pantry was a powerful idea of Maginhawa Community Pantry with a theme “Give whatever you can, take only what you need”

I have been working as job order in the local government for more than a year already, but I have no worker’s ID.  It wasn’t required at work, and there wasn’t a memo saying we should get one or a memo requiring us to get one.  I have remembered one time, we went to the HR department to ask about it, but we are told the ID template has to be change so we should just wait for the new template. Then, there was a time we are allowed to get an ID after getting our employee number. I went to the photo shop one afternoon, but I wasn’t catered since I think the owner is already feeling lazy turning on the equipment, I was asked to return the next day, but given my busy life in the office running around for errands I never had the chance to return anymore especially the shop is not a walking distance from my work place.

Pandemic came, still no ID. A year after pandemic started, still no ID and then suddenly again a quarantine pass is needed to go to town. Having no ID I have asked my sister to get me a Worker’s pass if she get hers, but unfortunately she wasn’t able to get me a pass, because whoever releasing the passes in our barangay doesn’t believe I don’t have a worker’s ID. If you are government worker, an ID is enough to pass through the check point according the memo from above.

With this, we decided to rush an ID from the photo shop in town where our LGU is tied up. It was closed and currently not receiving clients, but since one of our workmate is their neighbour we just did it the easiest way, we send our details and photos online, as well as our e-signature. Guess, what my disappointment when I received my ID? The details at the back were wrong, my birthdate, parent’s address and phone number and the signature at the back was not mine.  I have told my workmate about it, and he was told that the shop will give me a new one, but when the new one came instead of being happy I feel so stress out even more, because it has the wrong Employee number! Seriously? The minor errors at the back of the new ID is bearable, but having the wrong Employee number stresses me out  tremendously, so I asked my sister if he can message the shop owner if he can print another ID for me and I will just pay for it, since there was a mistake on the new ID I have received.  Call me vain, but I can’t accept the fact that I have a wrong employee number; it was like I stole someone’s identity or license number if we are talking about a professional identification.

Anyway, I was given a Worker’s pass in our barangay before I am able to rant in my Facebook account. No replied yet from the shop owner. He might be busy or cannot be bothered with my problem.