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.

Last Saturday, I woke up early and went to town before day light to help in the bike marathon sponsored by VM in celebration of his 50^th birthday.  It was a 50km bike race with five (5) categories; they were based on age group.

My office mates and I has their own designation in the marathon, I was assigned at the registration of the younger bikers (19 below) together with an older office mate.  We started the registration as soon we’ve done setting-up the tables and canopies. As expected from the pre-registration done a week ago, 19 below has more joiners,  I think we have around 45 young bikers.

Well, the bikers left five (5) minutes apart by category, and when everyone left to race we move our tables to the finished line, and since we still have ample time left before the bikers returned some of us went to the office to have a breakfast (a cup of coffee and pandesal with peanut butter) courtesy of an older office mate. The bikers returned early than expected, I had a trouble recording some of the bikers time in my category, not because they are too many, but because some bikers lost their numbers and it was hard to know who they are. You know what, I have raised this problem at the orientation asking if it is possible the bikers will also have number at their back, but we are told it will not be a problem because the bikers group will be there to help us, they will announced the number of approaching biker so we can hear and your guess is right as mine, it never happened when some bikers number were lost along the way.

There was instance I have to kneel just to see the number of approaching biker, that’s how hard to get the bikers numbers. Well, don’t ask for my partner because she is doing her own thing. Initially, she told me that she will record or video everything, but in one minute we all saw her becoming a medic, someone’s assistant and a caterer eerrr server, giving snacks to the bikers.

Anyway, the marathon ended well. We had a group picture, and when I returned to the table where left my documents they were nowhere to be found and then I overheard one of my office mate saying all the folders were keep in the container. The inner me is saying to check if my folder was there, but I am too tired to be bothered.

Monday came, and I was asked for my records as there are some bikers wanted to know their travel time, it turns it wasn’t in the container. Yep, it was missing and nowhere to be found. I already asked everyone, but no one is voicing out. It was a good thing, I have the habit of taking pictures of every important files. It was late in the afternoon when I was called by an older office mate, it turns out he has my folder, maybe he accidentally took it.