Let’s start this week’s column with a powerful prayer we have read on the Internet to renew our mind, body, and soul against the Covid-19 menace: “Lord, I come before you today in need of your healing hand. In you all things are possible. Hold my heart within yours, and renew my mind, body, and soul. I am lost, but I come to you with grace.You gave us life, and you also give us the gift of infinite joy. Give me the strength to move forward on the path you’ve laid out for me. Guide me towards better health, and give me the wisdom to identify those you’ve placed around me to help me get better. In your name I pray, Amen.”
As an avid urban gardener, this near-sighted Ibaloy writer fully supports and commends the City Veterinary and Agricultural Office (CVAO) that has been distributing repacked vegetable seeds to individuals and barangays in the city for the establishment of “survival gardens” as an emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic that is currently threatening the whole world.
In a news article, City Veterinarian Brigit Piok said the project aims to sustain the supply of vegetables in the coming months among barangays and households that have spaces or container gardens. She added barangay representatives may get free seeds at the CVAO from Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
It is quite unfortunate that it takes terrible circumstances such as this Covid-19 pandemic to remind us the importance of having food security for ourselves, our families and communities. One way of achieving this is taking advantage of the CVAO program and establishing survival gardens in the spaces we have or in containers. Let’s be creative. When there’s a will, there’s a way. Besides, what good is money if there is nothing to buy? Anyway, let’s all stay home, stay safe and stay healthy. God bless and protect us all.
The Department of the Interior and Local Government has directed all barangay officials to take the lead role in the enforcement of strict home quarantine in all households, mobilize their barangay health emergency response teams, and establish barangay isolation units as stated in DILG Memorandum Circular 2020-023. It reiterated that barangay officials may face charges of gross neglect of duty, gross negligence, and insubordination for failing to perform their responsibilities under a state of public health emergency.
Here’s “Invictus (Unconquerable)” by William Ernest Henley:“Out of the night that covers me,/ Black as the Pit from pole to pole,/ I thank whatever gods may be/
For my unconquerable soul./ In the fell clutch of circumstance/ I have not winced nor cried aloud./ Under the bludgeonings of chance/ My head is bloody, but unbowed./
Beyond this place of wrath and tears/ Looms but the Horror of the shade,/ And yet the menace of the years/ Finds, and shall find, me unafraid./ It matters not how strait the gate,/ How charged with punishments the scroll./ I am the master of my fate:/ I am the captain of my soul.”
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May our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ continue to bless and keep us all safe.
