By Penelope A. Domogo, MD
Just this morning, my friend and I were talking about the restrictions in our lives since the covid pandemic last year. The main restriction actually is mobility. All the other restrictions follow as a result of limited mobility. Restricting mobility automatically limits face-to-face interactions, mass gatherings, events. In effect, covid has sent us back to where we were 60 years ago or earlier. From my experience that would be in the 1960s, the twentieth century.
We lived in Besao, Mountain Province. Back then we didn’t go anywhere far, as children. There was no need- we were blessed to have kindergarten, elementary and high school in the area. There was no signal, no TV, no internet, no cellphones, not even landlines. Our contact with the world outside of Besao was the transistor radio and newspapers and magazines which came through slow mail. Our food came from Besao, except rice from Tabuk. We walked to our destinations. In the 1960s, the farthest I have been to using a motor vehicle was Baguio City and Tabuk, about eight hours ride by bus. We could only travel with our parents to Baguio City once a year during the summer break and only when Mom had to take summer classes. During the summers that we didn’t to Baguio, we went to Tabuk and this was because Tabuk was where our rice came from. I would go to Sagada for hospitalization or with Mom to Sagada on Saturdays for well-baby clinic of my younger siblings. Only one to two Dangwa buses plied the Besao-Baguio route. It would leave at dawn so if we wanted to ride to Banao where we had a few camote patches or to Sagada, we had to wake up way before daybreak. Babies and young children and the elderly stayed in the village. Almost all of the time, we were in the village. And we were well. Except for some tussles among drunken men during the town fiesta, our town was a peaceful, healthy town. Babies were delivered at home. Few people were ever hospitalized, certainly not schoolchildren. People were generally afraid to be hospitalized. Since diseases then were simple, they got well at home.
Fastforward to the 21st century. Travel has become cheap and accessible. Almost all barangays have roads and public transportation is available and affordable. People, from babies to the elderly, can travel at will. Before covid, at least three GL Trans buses (Dangwa buses long gone) ferry people from Besao to Baguio picking up more passengers from Sagada and other places along the Halsema Highway. Moreover, cars are now affordable to many Igorot families.
A government hospital was built in Besao in the late 1970s- originally a 10-bed hospital now has 25 beds. Initially, it had only a few in-patients but later has been exceeding its capacity. What was happening to Besao was happening all over the world. With roads and inroads of mass media controlled by the West, the world had become one global village- eating the same western food, seeing the same western media and using the same western medicines and medical technology. Life had become fast and more convenient…. and more self-indulgent. Not surprisingly, diseases have also been globalized. All over the world, even with covid, cardiovascular diseases are the top causes of death.
With this pandemic, we are forced to stay put where we are. During the first weeks of lockdown in Baguio City, we, senior citizens, were fortunate to have at least Sunday as our day out. On this day, only seniors can go out. The rest stay home. But there was no public transportation and I don’t know how to drive so I could only walk about four kilometres. Not going anywhere gave us more time in our hands which turned a lot of us into plantitas and plantitos, right in our house premises. We can produce pala our vegetables! Organic pa. And we got some needed exercise. Public transportation was available but required a lot of processes. It was also very expensive. So am sure that like me, you, dear reader, have discovered that we can live happily just by staying put in our villages. At least for us who are retired and those who have schools or jobs in the village. For those who have lost jobs in the city and who have provincial roots, this is a time to go back to the province and experience the wonder of the small village.
With this pandemic, hospital admissions decreased. People are afraid to contact covid and where else would covid be concentrated but in hospitals. So as much as possible, people didn’t want to go to the hospital. I was informed, though, that some hospitals, like St. Theodore’s Hospital in Sagada, were not admitting covid patients until lately. When before, people, especially parents, would easily bring their kids to the hospital for fever or colds, now they have managed these at home. Puede pala. With water therapy, rest and some herbs that the community knows and grows, people get well from illness. Just like what people did in the twentieth century. When we analyse the diseases in the small villages in the past, these were cough and colds, fever, diarhea- actually just adjustments that the body is doing to attain balance and would easily bounce back to normal. They got well by relying on their own resources! With the global village, diseases have become deep-rooted, chronic and debilitating- the result of long-term unhealthy western lifestyle so would also be difficult to treat. Statistics show that those who sought hospitalization during the pandemic are those who have these lifestyle diseases like hypertension, diabetes and cancer. Now that the universe has forced us from the global village to go back to the essence of the small village, I pray that we take this opportunity to rediscover the resources, the blessings, we have in the community and, in the process reclaim our health and maintain our well-being.***
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God.” Philippinas 4:6**
