Filipinos #CopingWithCovid Teresa Concepcion, Canada

Cecil­ia Brainard Inter­views Tere­sa Con­cep­cion

Inter­view con­duct­ed via email on May 25, 2020,
Copy­right 2020 by Cecil­ia Brainard

Cecil­ia Brainard: Are you still in lock­down? Are you alone or with oth­ers? Do you see oth­er peo­ple, and you do you prac­tices social dis­tanc­ing if so?

Tere­sa Con­cep­cion: Cana­da has dif­fer­ent lock­down peri­ods depend­ing on the province. In Ontario our lock­down will be until the first week of June. There are essen­tial ser­vices that were always open, and some of the busi­ness estab­lish­ments and pub­lic places have start­ed to be opened last week. Exam­ple, parks, beach­es, are now open in Ontario. There is still phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing that are required, masks are rec­om­mend­ed, and no more than 5 peo­ple can con­gre­gate at any point in time, unless that is the size of the fam­i­ly unit.

Our lock­down start­ed in mid-March. We are only two in our house­hold, I and my hus­band. How­ev­er we still see our 3 chil­dren, son-in-law, and my grand­daugh­ter. While this is more than 5 peo­ple, since I know that our fam­i­ly has been iso­lat­ing from oth­er peo­ple, I feel we are safe with­in our clus­ter.

CB: Are you work­ing? If yes, are you work­ing from your home or do you have to go to your place of work? Were you affect­ed finan­cial­ly by the pan­dem­ic? Did you lose your job? Did you get assis­tance?

TC: My hus­band and I ran a few inns. We, how­ev­er, closed our oper­a­tions even pri­or to the lock­down peri­od. We decid­ed it is too risky for our staff, because while we do an excel­lent job house­keep­ing, dis­in­fect­ing our premis­es requires oth­er pro­to­col which we were not pro­fi­cient at this time.

Yes, the accom­mo­da­tion indus­try was prac­ti­cal­ly shut down because world­wide trav­el was restrict­ed. The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment has been very respon­sive dur­ing this pan­dem­ic. Our prin­ci­pal con­cern was that we would not afford to pay wages to our employ­ees when our reserves ran out because no income was com­ing in. How­ev­er, our fed­er­al gov­ern­ment stepped in quick­ly and deci­sive­ly, and all fur­loughed work­ers got gen­er­ous assis­tance for the peri­od of the lock­down (4 months equiv­a­lent). As a small busi­ness cor­po­ra­tion, we also received an inter­est free line of cred­it payable only after 2 years. There is also a move to assist in mort­gage pay­ments, the details have to be ironed out.

I am actu­al­ly very impressed with the response of our gov­ern­ment to this crises.  I would describe our polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy as that of a social­ist democ­ra­cy. Dur­ing this pan­dem­ic, there was tremen­dous coop­er­a­tion and coor­di­na­tion in all lev­els of gov­ern­ment (munic­i­pal, provin­cial, and fed­er­al), and polit­i­cal par­ty affil­i­a­tions were for the most part a non-issue. In an age where there is skep­ti­cism of gov­ern­ment lead­ers, our gov­ern­ment has exhib­it­ed a deep sense of social respon­si­bil­i­ty and a gen­uine care for Cana­di­ans.

CB: Do you go out? To take walks? To see rel­a­tives or friends? For exer­cise?

TC: We are very lucky to have a park at the back of our house. We take dai­ly walks for exer­cise. With the weath­er turn­ing bet­ter, I had also been gar­den­ing and that is a lot of exer­cise!

CB: Do you wear a face mask? Do you prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing?

TC: If out­side I always wear face mask, more to be con­sid­er­ate of oth­ers so in case I get infect­ed, I am able to pro­tect oth­ers. Yes we had been quite dili­gent about phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing espe­cial­ly because of our age, and some health issues.

CB: Please describe in a few sen­tences your dai­ly rou­tine.

TC: Even with our oper­a­tions closed, work con­tin­ues. Tax­es to pre­pare, util­i­ty bills still ongo­ing, and some repairs to the hous­es have to be done, among oth­ers. How­ev­er, there is more time to sleep which is not the case dur­ing our nor­mal oper­at­ing peri­ods.

My daugh­ter also had a baby last April 17, and so I helped quite a bit with her house­hold chores (she had CS), and babysit­ting.

Grand­child of Tere­sa and Roger Con­cep­cion, born in the midst of the pan­dem­ic. 

CB: Do you buy your own gro­ceries? What pre­cau­tions do you take?

TC: We still go to the gro­ceries, but try to do so the first hour (seniors hour).

CB: Do you order food to go? What pre­cau­tions do you take?

TC: We do most of our cook­ing. We sel­dom order pre­pared food.

CB: Do you shop online or do you go out to stores that are open?

TC: We have very lit­tle needs, and have not real­ly shopped online.

CB: Do you wor­ry about the future? Do you have night­mares or bad dreams? Do you feel some anx­i­ety? Or do you sleep well and feel nor­mal as usu­al?

TC: Aside from the fact that I wor­ried about one son who was in the Philip­pines and was almost caught at the lock­downs (he was vaca­tion­ing in Siar­gao), and the birth of my first grand­child in the midst of the pan­dem­ic, I was not real­ly con­cerned about myself, but am not being care­less either.

Because it was a busy time for us, we are doing okay. Time has gone quite fast actu­al­ly, and we have not real­ly much down­time.

CB: Do you have tips on how to sur­vive this pan­dem­ic?

TC: Lis­ten to sci­ence. Keep busy. Pray (med­i­tate).

Covid actu­al­ly gave us an oppor­tu­ni­ty to pause and eval­u­ate our lives, some kind of a reset but­ton, that we would not nor­mal­ly take the time to do because of our busy sched­ules. Pri­mar­i­ly, it forced us to reflect on how we use (and abuse) our envi­ron­ment, nature, our rela­tion­ship with nature, how we do as care­tak­er of the earth. If it is return to the way things were, we will be fac­ing more vari­a­tions of the cur­rent pan­dem­ic, plus oth­er nat­ur­al dis­as­ters — flood­ing, typhoons, drought, extreme cold and heat. I believe we can indi­vid­u­al­ly make a dif­fer­ence on the out­come, of hav­ing a health­i­er earth.

Read also:

Coro­n­avirus: The Begin­ning, by Cecil­ia Brainard
How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid-19, Part One (Cecil­ia Brainard, Pos­i­tive­ly Fil­ipino)
How Fil­ipinos Are Cop­ing With Covid, Part Two (C. Brainard, PF)

Inter­views fol­low
Lia Fer­aren, Ger­many
Tere­sa Con­cep­cion, Cana­da
 Ofe­lia Gelve­zon Tequi, France
Reine Marie Bon­nie Melvin, France
New Zealand: Jay Mon­til­la & Moni­ka Tawngdee
Lin­da Ty-Casper, Mass­a­chu­setts, USA
Bar­bara Ann Jacala, San Diego, CA, USA
Bri­an Ascalon Roley, Ohio, USA

tags: #coro­n­avirus #covid #covid19 #pan­dem­ic #Fil­ipinos #Philip­pines #Cana­da #Toron­to #Fil­ipinoCana­di­an #Fil­ipinoAmer­i­can