March 29, 2024

Baguio Mayor Benjie Magalong has been congratulated anew by no less than President Rodrigo Duterte on May 28 in his address to the nation. The President said the mayor is a good administrator, a military man who knows how to execute good governance under his jurisdiction.
Sec. Carlito Galvez, who is the chief implementer of the National Task Force (NTF) Against Covid-19 and Presidential Adviser on Peace Process, also had good words for the mayor when he visited Baguio recently.
It is good to know that Baguio is considered a model city in terms of Covid-19 safety policies and implementation procedures.
As we are getting ready for the modified general community quarantine to be implemented June 1, we must still put to mind that it is best to stay at home if you don’t have anything essential to do outside.
Under quarantine, our sources of information are news briefings and social media.
I got a simple explanation from a post shared by Atty. Virginia Jeannie Lim on Facebook on the differences of the quarantines in terms of risk levels: ECQ – means highest risk, MECQ – means high risk, GCQ – means moderate risk, MGCQ – low risk and new normal – all quarantines lifted, but minimum safety protocols like safe distancing, wearing of face masks, and frequent hand washing should be maintained.
Now that we will be under MGCQ, we expect more moderate activities to happen as we await for the announcement and guidelines to be issued by the mayor.
As we are slowly getting back to normal, I need to revisit our beloved Baguio Museum where work program has stopped momentarily due to the Covid-19.
The 2017 U.S. Ambassador’s Fund for Cultural Preservation was supposed to culminate this June, but the Board of Trustees headed by president Fred Bagbagen is grateful that the U.S. Embassy through its Grants Officer Representative Edwin Vergara informed us of the extension of the project until December.
The grass has grown greener and taller literally on its grounds. The museum, being an important part of education, arts, and culture, must also take a back seat for the meantime as tourism prepares to jumpstart with the easing of quarantine protocols.
Everything is like being in a dream world. Everything is being planned and shown albeit hazy. It’s funny because as I was watching “Mystic Pop-Up Bar,” a Korean telenovela about dream worlds, an episode showed mistakes can be corrected with good deeds.
Perhaps, this pandemic dream world is teaching us to be more considerate, more generous, more forgiving, more caring and more patient. Not to be so critical, but more understanding and more appreciative of the little and big things that are coming our way.