COVID-19, a Thief in the Night

By: Veronica Leighton

 

Like a thief in the night, Coronavirus caught millions of people by surprise, and left some paralyzed with shock and fear, and some dead, unfortunately. The COVID-19 is not stealing our properties but our people’s precious lives — that of our friends, family members, staff, loved ones, colleagues, teachers, students, classmates, neighbors, advisers, government officials, heroes, idols, inspirations, leaders — people who have touched our lives, and if it ever happens to be sparing us, we are not really so sure yet. Such a feeling of instablity, dread and fear.

Suddenly, our life has completely changed due to the coronavirus pandemic (epidemics throughout the world). Lifestyle, work habits, eating habits, grooming, social interactions, have changed overnight. We are now faced with new words, new habits, new rules and precautions to protect ourselves from the Covid virii attacks–six-feet distancing, quarantining, self-isolating, wearing of N95 masks and gloves, washing hands with soap and warm water, sanitizing, etc.

As a small ethnic media business in our community for about four decades, we would be remiss if we’d mention that our media business was not affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Both Via Times publication and CPRTV show, small business media outfit, have been affected by Covid, sad to say. As Covid directly and indirectly hit our advertisers’ (our main source of income) businesses, they have unsurprisingly canceled on us, thus devastating our media business that’s 100% advertisers’ dependent.

Our April cover features an artistic depiction of Coronavirus number one precaution of Stay Home order, “Staying Inside, Staying Alive”, created by my talented brod-in-law, Antonio de Tablan. Via Times plans on having this emblazoned on a T-shirt soon as a memorial for this dreadful historic event in our lives. Your favorite columnists are right-on in their articles about the coronavirus pandemic touching on various interesting aspects to help all the front-liners, non-front-liners, essentials, non-essentials groups of our community to help each other, as we are all together in this, with the message of “this too shall pass.”

We are also featuring, giving homage to and saluting some members of our community who are there upfront in helping to fight Covid-19, saving many lives, and sacrificing their own lives at the same time. Many of these Covid Heroes are kababayan in health care, nurses, nurses aides, doctors, paramedics, therapists, caregivers, and some non-healthcare people that lent their helping hands to many who needed help. Please see pages16-17 and Girlie Pascual’s column pages on 18-19. Veronica’s Vibes on page features Mr. Richie Gil, a nurse frontliner who immediately came with his PPE special creation.

Sorry to announce, in our quest for survival in the ethnic media community due to the present situation, we were left with no choice but to cancel temporarily our long-running “the only locally- produced Filipino TV show in Chicago”, the Chicago Philippine Reports TV (CPRTV), but will still bring you your favorite “Filipino- American Lifestyle and Culture monthly magazine in the Greater Chicago Area,” although thinner in pages in its new version. Also happy to announce that we have our active presence in the utilization of the social media, specifically, the Facebook, where you can find us, interact with us, and LIKE and FOLLOW us on Via Times Newsmagazine, our business page, and Vero Leighton, my personal page. On FB, we bring you the latest Community Updates so many times daily a variety of news and developments involving our Filipino-American community in Chicago.

Through it all, this will be the time that we will realize that the material things that we have accumulated for our personal happiness and well-being is nothing, that you cannot bring a single thing with you when the dreaded death comes along, that life is fragile and life is short. We hope and pray that this April issue would mark the end of a “post-Covid” period that would bring us back to our “old normal,” for everyone in the whole wide world, as let’s face it, this new normal is just too scary and too dreadful for all of us, giving us no choice about the sad and eventful reality of life. Enjoy reading your favorite VT in this special April issue!##