Bonjour Philippines!
Millions of people have been impacted by the community quarantine’s measures announced by the Philippine government in mid-March. Starting with the main island of Luzon, it soon became nationwide.
We thought of going back to France to be close to our family, but we were not sure that it would be easy to go back to the Philippines.
We have our life in Manila now so leaving for an uncertain amount of time would have been too complicated to manage. Plus, we are 2 French in Manila, come on, not 2 French stuck in Paris.
So, we decided to stay here in the Philippines for the lockdown.
A first month of uncertainty and growing anxiety with a nationwide lockdown
With the rapid spread of news that the internet enables, we felt that many of our friends were growing anxiety about the situation.
Which was very normal, the measures taken for the pandemic is something unseen before for many of us.
So, we decided to do something different. A video that would share some good vibes about how people all over the Philippines were dealing with this situation.
With a bit of creativity and a desire to share positivity, we asked people from around different parts of the Philippines to share with us their lockdown’s experience.
From Baguio to Sultan Khumar (southern part of the Philippines), Filipinos, friends, and viewers sent us their messages through videos. Here is the video.
The following months of adapting with Covid19 and economic difficulties
With the covid19 still ongoing, we had to adapt. Many of us re-organized their work, their businesses, or their lives. A lot of owners and workers suffered from the lack of economic activity. Many industries were shut down and unable to operate.
Tourism was deeply impacted, and as of today, leisure travel is still not authorized. As per travel content creators, you can easily guess that we had to focus on other areas as well to keep living.
We are very grateful that we can live correctly, as we have seen a growing number of people asking for help: financial, supplies, etc. We received more messages than usual on our IG of people in need. So, we tried to help as much as we can and especially, at our own scale. Solidarity in difficult times is something we try to promote, and we just want to remind this to the people who will read this article.
The new normal: four months after the Philippines national lockdown
We are writing this in July 2020. And living in Metro Manila, we are now under GCQ which stands for general community quarantine. The measures are eased compared to ECQ (enhanced community quarantine).
Dine-in is allowed, most sports activities as well, more industries can be opened, etc. Having this GCQ status does not mean that we cannot go back to ECQ. More than that, getting back to pre-covid19 life is not something that we envisioned soon, the pandemic is not over.
So, for those last months, we paused our content production and publication. We felt that we had not much to say. So better to be quiet, right?
Recently, after months of not seeing each other, Nelson and I met to do a video and assess the life in Metro Manila under GCQ.
We also wanted to check out one of our friends, Ben, who owns a café, called St. Louis Café, in the business district of BGC.
Restaurants have suffered a lot from the pandemic, so we wanted to have his insights about how he also experienced the situation. Filipino society matters are a topic that is interesting to us, so we wanted to cover this question in our latest video. You can find the video here.
A message of hope for the future
Getting back to normal is not something that will happen soon, but we have adjusted our lives to deal with the situation. Many of us took the quarantine time to refocus ourselves, spend time with people that matter to us, finding new passions or activities, and even learning Tagalog!
There is always some positivism to be found in troubled times.
And to conclude, traveling is a passion but also our livelihood. So, we hope to be able to travel again soon. We will stay patient until we can and focus on other things that we can control for now: our health and our knowledge.
And you, we are curious, what are your comments about the situation?
