BY JULLIE YAP DAZA
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SIGNS of an epidemic of strange weather are all around us. What gives?
Hailstorm in Malolos.
Drought in Ilocos Sur.
Floods in Mamasapano, Maguindanao.
Mud floods in Bosoboso in Laurel, Batangas (where they have not recovered from the ash fall of January).
Tons of tomatoes and carrots rotting for lack of transport; prices up for lack of supply.
Rain and wind forecast for Luzon (June 11-15). Fires in crowded neighborhoods.
Every now and then, the earth shakes.
The rainy season is here. It’s also a time for tears. Pregnant women weep because they’re afraid for themselves and the baby they’re carrying. Planning a visit to the doctor in his clinic or hospital is just too scary to contemplate. What’s a penniless mother-to-be supposed to do while her husband prays for a job to land in his lap? Becoming a mother used to be a cause for joy, but no longer. Under the new normal, things have been turned inside-out, to strange abnormal.
An increase in pregnancies, not all of them anticipated or planned, is just one of five “unintended consequences” of the lockdown now on its third month. Going by DoH data, there will be 7 million pregnancies worldwide by year-end. DoH has a family planning kit to help expectant mothers, tide them over in the midst of the season of quarantines. A decrease in family planning, it has been pointed out by the public health sector, is another of those unintended consequences. DoH could make it their intent to enroll married men in the program, unless they’re busy drinking, gambling, loitering with or without their masks on.
Who will help another tribe of casualties? NBI has noted a spike in prostitution as more women are being forced into the trade after losing their stints in bars and clubs, spas, and massage parlors. One batch arrested by agents were exclusively minors who were being pimped by minors. Did their mothers know, and weep?
Among the shuttered clubs, a chain of high-end night spots, dark and glittery as they come, that have been around for ages. Their closure has surely put a smile on the face of a certain type of wife. Disrupting an old nocturnal habit/addiction/obsession may be good for the soul – whose?
