By Snow Marin
I got into a spacious room on the third floor of a building in one of the city colleges with two other female passengers who were previously aboard the same flight as me.
The room used to be filled with students eagerly waiting for their classes and the corridors noisy with kids on recess.
This time around, the rooms were filled with LSIs who came in from NCR and Cebu.
We were greeted with dusty floors and wide windows where men quarantined on the building across ours watched and surveyed the newcomers from afar, their stares burning through the transparent windows.
A green cloth hung in the middle as a divider to separate the room into two. I stayed on one end where the electrical outlet was and started organizing while we waited for our [folding] beds to arrive. They gave us a complete set of toiletries and a small blanket and a pillow. And you’d think, “Well, this seems adequate enough.”
On food and basic needs
Following the first few nights, operations started to falter. Food became scarce, and arrived late. On some days, food was too early and left outside until we can eat our dinner cold. Drinking water was just as sparingly provided, and there were days when we had to wait almost 24 hours for drinking water to be delivered.
During the orientation, the head doctor clearly said, “If you have any problems, you can approach us directly. It’s better than resorting to social media.”
But the lack of personnel around made it hard for the LSIs to approach anyone. Nurses are overworked; not only did they have to climb through three buildings and numerous floors, they also had to deal with people airing their concerns over the lack of coffee in the morning or the lack of water in the ‘bathrooms.’ Dirty common toilets were shared among men and women on every floor.
It seems like it isn’t a problem a doctor or a nurse alone can solve when the problem stems from a rather larger system that’s supposed to be supporting them. The lack of nurses, overworked doctors and health personnel are things that are apparent in today’s fight against COVID.
Even the cook who worked behind the scenes was said to have taken a few days off, explaining why there were days when food looked like it was bought from the nearest karinderya (packed in small plastics and placed in the usual styrofoam packaging).
On soldiers patrolling
One night, the army men knocked on our door to check on us because one of the LSIs escaped.
Placing much priority to soldiers and armed forces who couldn’t do that ‘one’ job.
On the environment
On our 10th day, I peeked through one of the windows and saw styrofoam containers scattered, almost covering a fifth of the field. The amount of trash and plastic collected over the previous weeks was innumerable.
What of the next batches of LSIs? Will the whole field be covered by the time the pandemic ends? Or will the field be too small a space to fit all of the discarded trash?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see and hope things start looking up before it’s too late.
