Lockdown in Cotabato City

In the Philippines, because of the spread of the virus, president Rodrigo Duterte announced the lockdown of Metro Manila and the entire province of Luzon starting March 15, 2020; after which there would be no air, sea or land travel, coming or going to other parts of the Philippines. Cotabato City which is located in Mindanao gets most of our supply from Metro Manila, so people here began to panic. I bought medicines, food supply like noodles, canned goods, salted fish and other essentials, good for one month. But because of our shared building and existing shared kitchen policy with my in-laws, I became unwittingly responsible for our two households, namely the household of Luna and Tina Tan and their two maids, and the household of Lucas and Heddy Tan, our own two maids and one common cook, nine persons in all. (Our children are all dispersed in different places.)

Cotabato City began its lockdown on March 16, 2020. Three days later we closed our store and confined ourselves in our home. The first fear was getting the virus. We prohibited the maids to go out and we closed our homes to any callers. Nobody is allowed to enter our building. My second fear was, having not enough food supply to last us for a month. I tried to ration the use of our stockpile. My own personal biscuits, crackers, tea, chocolates, food supplements, I carefully approportioned them too. My sister-in-law Tina had a runner guy (who worked in her cellphone store), to buy her things. Sometimes I would request that same guy to buy me bread or fruits, but even then, I was afraid I might get him infected, so I did it as less often as possible. Our fresh food though like pork, fish and vegetables got depleted already during the first week of the lockdown, so I hesitantly allowed the maids to go to the market. Where as, the households used to market everyday, now we do it once a week, or even longer. I tried my best to stretch our food supply to last longer. We were not eating like paupers but we were not eating like kings either. Nobody was complaining (except maybe Luna, I heard him a few times.)

After few weeks, I found out that I could call for grocery and produce deliveries, henceforth I started calling and buying things. I was ordering more and better goods too. We began to eat better also. Still, I was most careful in using our stockpile to last us longer, for I was also giving aids to some of our former helpers.

After two months, I decided to buy flour and baking powder. Yesterday, with my remaining dried blueberries and with the recipe of my daughter-in-law Angel, I baked a batch of oatmeal blueberry muffins. Oh, it was so good for snacks and desserts, I tried refraining myself from eating it three times a day. Haha!

Thanks to the following persons who sent me food:
1. My sister Jeannette Yu - for sending me loaves of bread, fried chicken and raddish cake, and the suman today.
2. Margie Plando - for the big beautiful ripe mangoes.
3. Tina Tan - for the pomelos, pineapple and other fruits.
4. Nestor Alasalas - for bringing to me my own produce from my own lot, those sweet Manga Manila and coconuts.
5. Last but not the least, my household helps for sharing their banana-qs.

As of today, after almost a month, Cotabato City has a new positive case. Yesterday, my in-laws Lucio and Conchita came home from Davao after being held up for two months. The store is again open for business. I keep at home since I don’t work for the store. I am as scared as ever because of the new positive. O Lord, please put an end to the spread of the virus. Please put an end to this pandemic. Have mercy on us O Lord, have mercy.