I forgot to mention yesterday that the last remaining remittance shop finally put a sign on its closed gate (after being closed for almost a week already). It will not be opening again during lockdown. This is a devastating development for this village bc we have no banks.

The people in this village almost all have at least one or two family members abroad who send them money to survive on. These aren't people who milk those remittances and buy shit they don't need. Those remittances pay for their kids to go to school and grandparents' meds.

That shop had lines as long as the grocery every single day it was open. I saw people standing at the closed gate the first time I noticed it was closed. When asked, an older lady there told me it had been closed two days already. She waited each day.

The barangay and city have not indicated if cash aid will ever reach people in this now ghettoized village. Food aid came once about a week ago and it wasn't even enough for lunch for more than two people. Now there will be no money. The grocery line should shorten soon.

There simply won't be as many people with the cash to afford groceries. This became evident earlier this week when people started roaming the back alleys offering empanadas (meatless) for sale along with just about anything else that can be found for sale.

While it is normal to have somebody walk buy honking a bicycle horn and selling peanuts, dirty icecream or taho in the morning... these are people who were the customers up till a week ago.

Window eateries have also suddenly become more numerous as people try to hawk the most pathetic excuse of spaghetti for as low as 10 pesos for a handful. Again... meatless. Still banana bbq (if there was a silver lining).

The pandesal shop now will only sell each family 20php worth so that everyone gets a little before the daily supply goes. The wet market sells ever smaller amounts of food. Eggs are available at the grocery but might as well be gold bars if and when they are available inside.

And while I know people will ask "where the hell does this guy live? It isn't that bad where I am"...

Look out your condo window and see if you can spot little tin roofs practically leaning on each other for support. Now try looking past that...

The first two weeks I lived in this country full time we were in a condo. Then my family broke it to me that the place we were in wasn't actually where they lived. So rather hesitantly they introduced me to this village and the family dog that hated me.

That thing died of a tumor three years later and did eventually grow to like me... like six months before it passed on. But anyhow, been in this place now for five years. Ipis, tae and all that don't bother me. It is how shitty people in those condos treat people in this place.

That is what pisses me off. How people here walk to those condos they can see towering over them so they can work as yayas, house cleaners, house boys, drivers, janitors, fast food staff... anything to make life possible down here in the shadows.

Then something like this covid-19 crisis hits the fan and the people who relied on the blood, sweat and tears of these folks call in the gun carrying troops to keep the villagers in their place. Conveniently placing the checkpoints on this side of the grocery y'all use too.

It wasn't enough that these people send their kids to subpar schools bc that is all they can afford or that their families are sold off to plantations abroad bc y'all fetishize the OFW... now they are told their lives aren't worth living bc y'all fear a virus AND them alike.

See, I get to leave this hellhole eventually. Even if the end date isn't marked on the calendar yet, I get to say adios and take my family out of here at some point.

How many of these people would gladly give life and limb to be able to do the same? But your system blocks that.