We are coming to the end of May, and the world has changed, life has changed, everything has changed! I AM CHANGED! Thanks to the CQ (“community quarantine”) experiences.
First, I recognize that CoViD 19 is real and can kill, and has in fact really killed many people, some of whom we know and love and respect and will miss, and is, therefore, not to be recklessly under-estimated. For this reason, the early draconian measures to handle it (lockdown, no travel, curfew, etc.) were understandable, even good.
However, as time went on, it became very obvious that there was something very, very wrong with the whole thing.
First, nobody seemed to want to investigate the true source of the virus, which, by medical common sense, should have been the first order of the day (The source! The source!). Then , the World Health Organization, quoting “experts”, warned of “spikes” and second waves and called on governments to continue lockdown measures, while bandying the idea that “only a vaccine” can solve all of this. They either shoot down, clamp down, or ignore as “fake news” (or as unreliable sources) anyone who proposes or shows an explanation or alternative solution to the virus (or bacteria, as allegedly new studies in Italy now show).
Yet, they love to quote and cite Bill Gates as the world’s foremost authority on vaccines even though he has not taken a single subject on nursing or medicine. Citing the initial mounting casualties, the “experts” fed the fear, fueled the panic, fanned the hysteria and let people accept massive and wholesale destruction of economies, businesses, livelihoods.
I stand on record in my firm belief that this “pandemic” is a “plan-demic”, the objective of which is to prepare humanity for the next rounds of massive manipulation, coercion and subjugation to the agenda of a New World Order that wants to reduce the population of the world, and control people’s lives.
I believe that this is preparatory to the beastly global governmental system prophesied in the Bible, to be led eventually by the Anti-Christ. That is what I believe in.
Now to the “new normal”.
Regardless of what I believe in, I am prepared to adjust to the “new rules” that authorities will impose, like social distancing, frequent hand-washing, alcohol, even face masks (which I will wear only up to my nose when I have to converse with people). Before Covid-19, I travel a lot (not for leisure, but ministry related), and travelling takes a “hard hit” in my life.
There are things that Zoom and Skype cannot achieve, but as we said, if these are the times we are in, we roll with the punches.
Law practice takes a hard hit, too.
Now, trial schedules, if ever, will be so much farther and fewer apart, because courts are small, enclosed, air-conditioned spaces, with more than half of the judges being seniors, and plastics and distancing will limit trial space and time.
I also am not sure if Zoom or electronic hearing will do.
Yet again, okay lang, we roll with the waves of the times (I only wish that judges will find a way of writing decisions more quickly with less hearing time).
And yet, despite all this, I say, God wins, and those who align with Him are winners. God has achieved an unimaginable victory in this chaos.
First, He has re-vindicated the home as THE PLACE for families to be in. He has FORCED family members to live and work “as one”, to do the “lowly chores” with joy, (planting vegetables, washing dishes), to laugh, love, pray, talk, reviving memories of bygone days when life was simpler and families were closer, when gadgets did not get in the way of real relating. Three times my wife cut my hair, which is not much anyway (she will not let me do her hair!). God has shown that church is not the building but people, who can still worship and pray without the building. God has given massive opportunities for people to show that they care (the massive voluntary deliveries of food packs, PPE’s, the sharing, have been tremendous).
Of course, hawkers, thieves, opportunists abound. While some politicians gave out of their own pockets, others “rode on” the generosity of others by putting their own names on frozen chicken and other food packs donated by others, without acknowledging the donors (Tonto guid ni mga politico, wala guid patawad).
Even for our returning OFWs, God has forced us to show our love and care for them. Now our officials have to pick them up, care for them, look after their welfare, before releasing them back to their families. It has been a long overdue care that our OFWs deserve, which they are able to collect only now from us.
Over all, God has ordered an amazing reboot, de-fragging, de-clogging, cleansing, re-org, reset, of our lives. Remove the non-essentials (now we go to the malls and groceries only for things we truly need).
We are forced to streamline, re-focus. We now appreciate the value of the simple things, the simple joys (the vegetable patch in the backyard, the barter with the neighbor). We had more time to sleep, rest, pray, finish a good book, read the Bible.
We can still live, and work, but now, with a firmer sense of purpose, a sharper sense of priority, and a deeper humbling sense of our vulnerability, and our supreme need of God and of His grace and mercy and favor. So I say, in the end, contrary to popular belief that “in the end, China will win”, it is God Who wins, and those who align with Him.
By the way, speaking of China (the Communist government, not the people), China really is not to be to be trusted. It has the gall to sing us a song of their stolen territory in the seas, and positioning themselves in the islands that do not belong to them.
They have marked eighty plus of the underwater realms and named it after themselves. They say the sea are “ours together” but they ram any fishing boat that fish in the area, leaving their hapless sailors at sea. Mga walang hiya talaga.
I pray that not only shall we have gallant frontliners in the person of our medical personnel and police (etc.), but that we will also have patriotic backliners – members of the intelligence community who will track down all Chinese communist spies here and their collaborators, promoters, supporters, and cheer leaders.
Let us just note their names in the meantime, for there will be a reckoning.
Before I end, I owe a word of thanks to our police and peace keepers. In my entire lock down, CQ experiences, crossing the border checkpoints, I never had one single bad experience with them. In blistering heat or weltering rain, they were all very nice, very cordial, very respectful. I bow to you and salute you, guys (that include the girls by modern English)!
Salamat guid!
God bless you all! So this has been what the lock down and “CQ’s” have meant to me these days. It is a two cents’ worth of insight that says, God is the God of times and seasons, and that peace is not the absence of chaos or trouble, but the presence of God in our lives.
