A volunteer frontliner from Paranaque disclosed in a recent episode of Survivors Speaks Series how the pandemic pushed her to join their barangay in implementing the minimum health protocols.
She also narrated how she won over COVID-19 through the help of tireless frontliners and the kindness of people from her community.
When the pandemic broke out and the Enhanced Community Quarantine was announced, Maria Malaya Manalili, or Mars, 29, as her friends and family call her, felt the need to do something for the community.
She said she reached out to a friend who works in their barangay and volunteered to help any way she could.
This led Mars to join a small task force in their local barangay which patrols their neighborhood’s wet market and ensured that physical distancing was strictly implemented.
Other projects in her barangay included supplying meals for frontliners.
But Mars contracted the virus—but found herself reaping the seeds of kindness she had sown in the community and made her realize that the bayanihan culture among Filipinos, even in a dire situation, was still alive.
Mars experienced symptoms early in July, nearly four months after the main island of Luzon came under strict lockdown.
When she had intense body pains, headaches, low fever, and a weak sense of taste, her family sought help from the local government unit who advised her to get a swab test.
Mars and her family took it upon themselves to begin isolation and intensify infection control protocol at home.
They made sure that there were alcohol dispensers in different locations in their house.
Aside from regular hand washing, they wore masks even at home.
Unfortunately, two family members, as well as an aunt who lives next door, also contracted COVID-19. Mars’ house does not meet the required conditions for home quarantine.
Mars herself was confined in the hospital, while two of her brothers had to stay in the LGU’s quarantine facility while waiting for the results which fortunately turned out to be negative.
Getting supplies of food and other essentials were challenging, but their neighbors and relatives willingly sent them care packages and ran errands for them.
The same kindness met Mars on her return to their home. A friend with an extra room in their house took her in for the 14-day isolation period.
According to Mars, there is no discrimination in their community, only helpful hands and kindness. When the news broke that she and three members of their family were COVID-19 positive, there was an outpouring of people who offered them help– even distant relatives and acquaintances she rarely spoke out with reached out to see how they could assist them.
There was never a chance for stigma and discrimination to thrive.
Mars also recounted how even her fellow COVID-19 patients in the facility would support each other towards recovery.
She witnessed in the elementary-school-turned-isolation-facility that, despite having individual battles with the novel sickness, the patients would still find the chance to offer each other food supplies or medicine, and check up on each other’s condition.
Witnessing bayanihan culture, alongside the jolly disposition of her family and the frontliners who took care of them, greatly helped Mars battle the mental turmoil brought about by the illness.
Being a cup-half-full kind of person, Mars attested that always finding the silver lining in any situation contributed to her physiological recovery.
Health Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire also supported this attitude, saying: “Mars experience demonstrates to everyone that we should always be productively optimisitic.”