Coping with Corona

The Duterte administration's draconian enforcement of stay-at-home orders during this coronavirus pandemic is adding to the stress of quarantine, especially among a large sector of the now-elderly population who experienced martial law. PF contributor Ernesto M. Hilario provides a timely situationer on the enhanced community quarantine that is in place until May 15. ["Fighting Fire with Fire Won’t Stop the Pandemic"]

In one country in the Horn of Africa where the pandemic is an added burden to an already dire humanitarian crisis, it's business-as-usual work albeit with tighter social restrictions for humanitarian aide worker Gerry Romay of Negros Occidental. Our Nairobi-based writer, Agatha Verdadero, reaches out. ["Horn of Africa: Social Distancing as a Lifestyle"]

More nimble than their brick-and-mortar counterparts, Filipino food trucks and pop-ups in California switch their focus to helping the frontliners and those in need. PF regular contributor Jennifer Fergesen reports. ["Filipino Foodpreneurs Keep on Truckin’ Amid Pandemic"]

They say if you have Covid-19, among the first signs are the loss of your sense of smell and taste. Well, if you cook Filipino food, as PF Correspondent Elizabeth Ann Quirino suggests, and you're savoring the aroma and the strong flavors, then you're okay. ["Stop and Smell the Power of Filipino Cooking"]

And what better way to test your taste buds than "Becugan," the Kapampangan bagoong, our Happy Home Cook recipe this week.  

For those waiting to immigrate to the US, here are the basic facts about President Trump's latest directive suspending immigration. San Francisco-based immigration lawyer Maria Lourdes Tancinco writes our Partner post.  

Here are links to more stories:

Job Losses Drain Overseas Money That Helps Fuel the Philippines
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/job-losses-drain-overseas-money-210000713.html

This 81-year-old was L.A.’s most devoted museum-goer until COVID-19 shuttered cultural institutions
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-04-23/81-year-old-ben-barcelona-lives-and-breathes-museums-but-what-happens-when-culture-collapses?fbclid=IwAR1H8Na5TIC2jMZMUtfV1SjzsMnTf88n23ibsaK8QpF6-Ue-seB7779eO0E

Supplier of World’s Nurses Struggles to Fight Virus at Home
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-23/philippines-sends-nurses-around-the-world-but-lacks-them-at-home?srnd=premium-asia&fbclid=IwAR1zyKW0MWrg11tG7uj0TnIGd5Lu2-vN_FNMT5hkTgZ8kDIlE0-asMums40

Love story that started Peyups.com revives it as pandemic ‘escape’
https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/361524/love-story-that-started-peyups-com-revives-it-as-pandemic-escape/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR3FCmpteDj_4XI3sfFqVgry1Yyy15saZWNjHq9Mqko05cMlODs2eSOKFeE#Echobox=1587778400

Nursing ranks are filled with Filipino Americans. The pandemic is taking an outsized toll on them
https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/28/coronavirus-taking-outsized-toll-on-filipino-american-nurses/?fbclid=IwAR3yLDwQM2HF9IH0gw5X-eqHZSMMNp5IKIC4xO6wjfH-Yogua_8e_wWcBRs

A ‘Filipino soul food’ restaurant is reborn as a community kitchen
https://www.latimes.com/food/newsletter/2020-04-25/tasting-notes-escarcega-bebot-filipino-soul-food-long-beach-tasting-notes?fbclid=IwAR13AtMwL35EEym_p_fpC0u4j0ps6ccL9-TeyjTod5D4Mjyba7v3ghQoKB0

For video of the week, in celebration of Asian Pacific American History Month, CAAM launched the trailer of its 5-part documentary “Asian Americans” which premieres on PBS on May 11 and 12, 2020.

Cabin Fever

How do we survive cabin fever as the pandemic quarantine stretches to a month? We dream, we squirm, we imagine, we fantasize, we eat, we watch the world through electronic eyes, we cook, we read, we grieve, we exercise, we rant.

PF publisher Mona Lisa Yuchengco, in part 3 of her "Life (and Love) in the Time of the Coronavirus" talks about what she does and does not do, as the unrelenting virus continues to upend everyone's routines.

Off-tangent dreams is what Canada-based contributor Patria Cabatuando Rivera writes about in "COVID Dreams in Toronto."

Reading of course can be salvation from the drudgery of home-based routines, so here's a reading list I've put together of impressive Filipino-authored books you might want to order online.

If you've lost a loved one recently -- an experience that, according to the Worldometer tally, 176,596 families worldwide have gone through, here's a way of "Tending Grief in Community," a suggestion by retired professor Leny Mendoza Strobel. 

And if you can see travel to exotic places like Finland in your personal crystal ball, here's 2 Filipino-owned restaurants -- Pobre and Paisano -- to try in Helsinki as covered by intrepid traveler Michael Gil Magnaye in "Filipino Fine Dining in Finland."

Since we all now have the time to cook, try out Pobre's recipe for Pike Perch Pesa

Our In The Know links expand our Covid-19 coverage:

On Pandemic’s Front Lines, Nurses From Half a World Away
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/world/asia/coronavirus-philippines-nurses.html?fbclid=IwAR0xlwriAQ4pRzTn_NML-kuCHivJ-FH99TyKwvcN9OysxoprVCn5Ubmzs_I

Coronavirus exerts heavy toll on Filipino community in UK
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-exerts-heavy-toll-on-filipino-community-in-uk?fbclid=IwAR1_xBt4Dz7-2jZsTdVmfz5hCm4Pmzu3OVnn6Ej7QcL-VI5dVpyHpNAn3Xg

‘Bayanihan Musikahan’ now aids rural farmers and urban poor
https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/361046/bayanihan-musikahan-now-aids-rural-farmers-and-urban-poor/?fbclid=IwAR2VAtpbnmtasfMnlg4pLraioIaqr-BLSAH8n4g54_qOEZVvs_98cD6FqzY

Coronavirus: UK Citizens Furious at L 1000 Repatriation Flights from the Philippines while Travellers in Peru Paid L 250
https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/coronavirus-uk-travellers-repatriation-flights-philippines-peru-a9447966.html?fbclid=IwAR3GxJAktODn7RB6h9x6s5YlBoxkiJhtYnyn3tenAcVYo5mOx7hDQgcCrcE

A Daughter’s Heartbreak: A California Mother Loses Battle to Covid-19
https://balitangamerica.tv/a-daughters-heartbreak-california-mother-loses-battle-to-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR2gb42WFym4aoNi0qe6BmcFqAjBNjVxOSfLXVA_-UYTi0WETIDUBjJHMeg

Sheltering In Place When You’re Half the World Away from Home
https://gen.medium.com/sheltering-in-place-when-youre-half-a-world-away-from-home-3869ad0cf662

'Inseparable' New Jersey couple, both health care workers, die of coronavirus days apart
https://news.yahoo.com/married-44-years-inseparable-jersey-211632538.html?soc_src=hl-viewer&soc_trk=ma

And our Video of the Week, here's a musical tribute to the Filipino frontliners all over the world produced by the Department of Education of the Philippines.

Lockdown Lowdown

"Lockdown" "quarantine" "shelter-in-place" "shutdown" "recession" -- the new shared lexicons of the world are emotion-laden terms that stir a variety of reactions. And as the human race absorbs the effects of the pandemic on life as we knew it, each of us seek different ways to allay our anxieties.

Educator and policy analyst J.M. Luz ponders the problem of the class divide in the Philippines and offers suggestions on how to temper a possible social eruption in the midst of the pandemic. ["Metro Manila Lockdown: Finding Openings to Ease the Poor's No-Work-No-Pay Situation"]

From Palawan, Elise Suarez, a precocious teenager who writes a column for Palawan News, gets inspiration from a hit Korean teledrama even as she does her part in keeping the spread of the virus at bay. ["Crash Landing in Quarantine"]

In Los Angeles, PF Correspondent Anthony Maddela uses this time of lockdown to reflect on life's simple pleasures and challenges. ["A Time of Living Cautiously"]

PF contributor Patricia Araneta pays tribute to the legendary radio/TV host Leila Benitez, who passed away recently in New York. ["My Aunt and Friend, Leila Benitez"]

For Happy Home Cooks, here's PF Correspondent Rene Astudillo's "Fried Breaded Spam Musubi," a creative way of using a Filipino lockdown staple, Spam.

Don't fail to read our Partner posts this week:

Help Our Artists And Our Community

Filipino Food Movement Launches An Online Campaign, Supporting Filipino Chefs And Restaurants

And to further enhance your coronavirus knowledge, our In The Know links:

Meet the health-care workers spearheading the Philippines’s fight against coronavirus
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/world/2020/04/11/meet-health-care-workers-spearheading-philippiness-fight-against-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR38UtJzT6LH8XI9STe69m4g9Jav2x8WVZieSshjWSm4lMZqaL2d1nWmqqk

The Anti-Virus Warriors in My Blood
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/specials/content/142/howie-severino-the-anti-virus-warriors-in-my-blood/?fbclid=IwAR24MWyac6rBlagMmh2OagtmVfQraV-m7mZXlESYy096K8_5tOX1G9fN4bU

Life after lockdown: An infectious diseases expert on how we could avoid a surge in COVID-19 cases
https://news.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/spotlight/04/13/20/life-after-lockdown-an-infectious-diseases-expert-on-how-we-could-avoid-a-surge-in-covid-19-cases?fbclid=IwAR3FMI8xA4093vDx6-NDDUf96AxhWLRKnDqkULKrHCvRBOurHkbyoJ-bA8A

Philippine jails are a COVID-19 time bomb
https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/investigative/257640-philippine-jails-covid-time-bomb?fbclid=IwAR2YV1guhhmSmXgivXY3OdyjnAnPKbUGGrSZrZ4hj7Founthfa8YOACLTCA

Looking Out for Your Own in the Philippines
https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/looking-out-for-your-own-in-the-philippines?fbclid=IwAR3tfXWdoWwsZ6TRno_T7d0ndFUhfBn10B7vupanzGyXWBvem5LwYhElyl4

“Kindness station” in Sorsogon allows residents to get free food, clothes, rice for free
https://virtualpinoy.com/2020/04/kindness-station-in-sorsogon-allows-residents-to-get-free-food-clothes-rice-for-free/?fbclid=IwAR0eH897zz6I8eqmwk2nbSdV3qTxnOT8LD7So0WGxMYc2cpF66uRbmYyaVg

For our Video of the Week, the families of the medical staff of St. Luke’s Medical Center in the Philippines made a tribute video for their loved ones battling on the frontlines of Covid-19.