Note: These characters are base on Philippines setting

1. Healthcare Frontliners

The real-life Avengers of this crisis. Everyday they have direct contact to COVID Patients which puts their lives at greater risks. In fact, as of this writing , 21 Filipino doctors had died because of corona virus. Main cause is lack of Personal Protective Equipment and the patients lying about their condition and travel history.

Not only their lives are in peril, they were also discriminated in the community. Just check out this news. A nurse has been harassed and beaten. On top of that the suspect threw bleach to his face that caused damage in his eyes. All because they thought he has covid-19 just because he is working in a hospital. He’s just doing his job. This is just one of the heartbreaking stories of our frontliners being harassed and discriminated.

We welcome the month of April with a news of tragic medevac plane crash in NAIA. It killed doctors, airline crew and patient on their way to their medical mission. Full story here.

Recently, an artist named Aurelio Castro III paid tribute to our fallen heroes by drawing them their portraits. Get to know him and the doctors,nurses here in GMANEWSNETWORK.COM

Know more about our fallen healthcare workers in the lenses of their love ones in this video from ABS-CBN. Grab your tissues!

Let’s not add to the burden of our medical warriors. Stay at home and don’t discriminate. To the government, please don’t ask for volunteer nurses. They are risking their lives and they deserve a proper compensation for it.

Twitter source unknown. CTTO.

2. Essential Workers Frontliners

They may not be patient-facing but they face great risks too as they are still out there interacting with people without knowing if they are carriers or not. They still go to work and serve our basic needs such as food , money and protection. . Finally we see that in the worst station like this, its their work that are essential and yet they are mostly underpaid. They should have hazard pay and personal protective equipment too

3. Quarantine Tributes

They are the member of the household who holds the quarantine pass. The brave the long lines in the supermarket and groceries just to get the essentials of the family. If you are the quarantine tribute in the family, you should be proud of yourself as you’re sacrificing your safety too for the sake of your family. Don’t forget to sanitize when going back home from the run.

Things we learn: Their work is essential to our lives. When this is over, appreciate our essential workers by giving them a raise.

4. The Poorest of the Poor.

People whose livelihood depends on daily wages and won’t be having any funds during this quarantine period. They heavily needs government subsidies and relief goods. However, as this is not enough, they find it hard to comply with quarantine because they have to seek opportunities to have money. For them , the quarantine is a nightmare. Quoting from a news interview, they may not die because of coronavirus but out of hunger.

Just watch how a 55 year old lady cried helplessly as she was not given relief goods because she has no stub.

These tricycle drivers are still sneaking to work because they need to provide for the family.

5. The Middle Class

I once read that the middle class are those one hospital bill away from being poor. And in this Covid19 crisis, they are not included in the social amelioration program of the government. Finally, governor Jonvic Remulla voiced out the plight of the middle class. He actually summed it all in his open letter to the President. They are the largest population that pays the taxes and yet often neglected. They needed support too. Because of this the poorest of the poor and middle class had on-going word clash in social media.

Read his whole letter here:

6. Law -abiding Stuck-at-Home individuals

Or if you are the member of the family who does not have the quarantine pass and just literally has to stay at home, then you are a hero too. Complying in quarantine is a sacrifice also. It’s not easy and some are struggling with their mental health for it. If you are doing your best to deal with this, maybe by binge-watching series, doing tik-tok videos, learning new skills, voicing out in social media, cooking and other strategy to combat boredom, then you are doing a good job.

Get some tips on how to make the most out of the quarantine by this awesome and funny comic of Real Life of Reg

7. The Work-From-Home Workforce

Mostly coming from BPO-IT industry, the favorable work-from -home arrangement has enable their operations to continue in spite of the pandemic. And it’s doing Philippine economy a massive favor. Those people working in BPO are now sharing this important message
“the BPO employees you look down on are the ones holding the economy together right now.”

As advantageous as it sounds, working from home has it’s own woes too. Sharing with you a funny comic by Sskait .

8. Social Media Warriors

Well, there’s a whole lot of category for this one and I don’t want to attempt to break it all down. But all I can say is Social Media has empowered the voice of the people. Healthy arguments are fine. I believe that helps us to send the message to the government if we are collectively happy or not. Just don’t resort to bullying, name-calling and harassment. Also make sure that you share factual news.

9. The Elitists Who Forgot to Check Their Privileges

Not putting rich people in general, but it’s obvious that there are elite people who can’t understand the plight of the poor. Mostly it’s prevalent to our government officials. their lack of empathy has affected the way they device plans to ease the real situation of the common Filipinos. Just look at how dismissive they are to the real situation of public transportation in the country. Unfortunately, it carry over in the time of pandemic. As much as we understand the objective of quarantine, the sad reality is there are families who can’t just afford to sit still at home like rich people can.

For public personalities, recently James Deakin drew flak for his post stating ‘

To those who are complaining about the quarantine period and curfews, just remember that your grandparents were called to war; you were being called to sit on the couch and watch Netflix. You can do this”.

Some immediately commented that poor Filipinos won’t even have access to Netflix. Although he explained his side already and that statement was not original , this already offended a lot of his followers and marked him as insensitive. Same graphic was shared by Mocha Uson and Lea Salonga.

This screengrab came from this article in rappler and it’s a good opinion article on how the apathetic some celebrities and government officials are.

10. The Praised Politicians.

Looking at the brighter side, some LGU leaders are receiving positive attention because of their quality ideas and response to the crisis. Of course there are more politicians like them out there. But undeniably, Vico Sotto was the most talked about mayor in social media.

I’m highlighting Vico Sotto and Gatchalian’s tweet to each other regarding adopting ideas and best practices in response to Covid19 quarantine period. Reading their tweets give me hope for the country.

11. The Fundraisers

Caritas Manila is just a sample. But even ordinary households go out of their way to make personalized PPE ‘s for their nearest hospital and some lead fundraising drives to provide to the poor. If you want to help , this google drive link holds a spreadsheet of details of the different groups that coordinates efforts to help hospitals and the needy.

12. Hated Politicians

If there’s any good thing about Covid19 , it brings out the true colors of many politicians. The frontrunners for this category will be Joy Belmonte and Koko Pimentel . Aside from them, there are also reports of mayors missing in action. I hope people will always remember this lesson and vote wisely in next elections.

13. The Pasaway’s (the Non-Law Abiding Individuals)

So there are people who can’t just follow the simple quarantine protocols. They are not going out to seek for work and groceries either. Sadlymost offenders are adults. Just look at the sample below which happened in Mandaluyong City. The residents hold an illegal cockfighting event ignoring the strict social distancing rule. Gladly they were arrested as deserved.

14. The Office of the President

People love him. People hate him. The great divide continues. But one thing is for sure, we should all pray that he and his team would be successful in leading the country in this time of pandemic. We should follow but remain level-headed critical of their ways. Or else, every Filipino will spiral down along with this virus, no matter what our political preference is.

15. The COVID-19 Victims and Their Families

Covid19 chooses no one. It targets the rich ,the poor, ordinary , celebrities, young and old. But the most vulnerable are the senior citizens. The alarming truth is the number of patients is now way beyond most hospital capacity nowadays. Hospitals have no choice but to send some patients home to have their self-quarantine. But even that was a hard thing to do because the community won’t accept the patient to go back into their homes either. Just like the case here.

Fortunately, there’s way to recover from Covid-19. Some already went out of their way to help on the research and development for the cure.

Full story on rappler.com.

Still the worst reality was the fate of the fallen victims. They die in isolation without the comfort of their love ones. The family can’t even say their proper goodbyes. The body goes straight to cremation. To add to the pain of the grieving family, they even have difficulties in finding morgue or crematorium that will accept the body.

This story from Facebook detailed the fate of the OP’s father who was made to wait in scorching heat of the sun because hospital could not admit new patients anymore. He died positive in Covid 19.

Together our heart bleeds for them, And I hope we continue to be law-abiding citizens. Staying at home will contribute greatly in stopping this pandemic.

Do you think there’s a role lacking in this list? What is your role is in this quarantine period? If you’re not from the Philippines, are these characters also in your country?