Doctor pens pandemic-inspired poetry in Filipino
Since the start of the pandemic, Dr. Joseph Adrian L. Buensalido has been working almost nonstop. An infectious disease specialist, his expertise comes at a time when a new and virulent strain of the SARS-Cov-2 virus quickly changed the course of our lives.
One day he’s sporting head-to-toe personal protective equipment, risking his health as a tireless frontliner to COVID-19 patients; the next day he’s speaking to colleagues and media about the latest findings concerning the highly contagious and potentially fatal novel coronavirus.
Despite his long and full days, he managed to write and publish his first book — and he didn’t have to look far for inspiration.
Launched at the Makati Medical Center before an intimate gathering of fellow doctors and close family and friends, Mikrobyong Maliit, Pandemyang Pasakit: Ang Tinulang Salaysay ng Pandemyang COVID-19 traces the unfolding of the pandemic in the Philippines in a most unique way. Colleagues marvel at his choice of four-stanza poetry written in sobering, witty, and occasionally biting conversational Filipino.
“Ang SARS-CoV-2 ay napakaliit,” he says in “Mga dating kalaban, nagsibalikan.” “Isang mikrobyong mumunti/Pero gadambuhala ang hagupit/Lahat ay nagtago’t nagdalamhati.”
“Bulaga sa Bagong Taon” looks back at the nightmare following the eruption of Taal Volcano in the first quarter of 2020. “Bisa ng Bakuna sa Totoong Buhay” recalls the issues of vaccine preference and hesitancy. The five-stanza “Panangga” is a funny take on the underappreciated face shield, and “Hari” is a not-so-subtle reference to the virtual meeting where doctors were berated for opposing lenient quarantine measures. “Para sa Mga Kasamahang Naging Bayani” honors Buensalido’s colleagues who lost their lives in the early days of the pandemic.
Accompanied by the vibrant artworks of his wife, dermatologist Jocel Soria Buensalido, the book also features blackout poetry, wherein select words of an original poem (in this case, his hero Dr. Jose Rizal’s “Mi Ultimo Adios”) are blackened out to create the new poem, “Mabangis na Sakit.”
Writing in poetry and in Filipino came naturally to Buensalido. “The first pandemic poem that I wrote was about Dr. Jose Rizal, and how we can learn and get inspired by him because he, too, went through and survived a pandemic (cholera),” he says.
Penned for a contest organized by the Museo ni Jose Rizal in Calamba, Laguna, the poem wasn’t submitted in time for the deadline.
Still, he continued to write — and how. Mikrobyong Maliit,
Pandemyang Pasakit was written during his free time, initially after dinner at home with his family.
And then “ginanahan na ako,” he says, and churned out poem after poem on his mobile phone whenever possible.
Buensalido owes his fluency in Filipino to his generation, who converse primarily in the mother tongue. “Our grade school and high school teachers needed to find strategies to make us use English to communicate,” he says. “Even my dad used to post a note on my and my brother’s desks. ‘Study hard. Speak English. Do more than others.’”
Today, our national language is a second language to his children, 12-year-old Jaime Inigo and Clara Alexandra, seven. To encourage them to embrace Filipino, the doctor posts his version of his father’s note on their laptop screens. “’Study hard. Speak Filipino. Do more than others.’ I hope it works,” he says.
While he continues to write pandemic-inspired poetry (“since the COVID-19 pandemic is still ongoing”), his narratives may not be as grim as they were in 2020. “Well, we are in a good place now because we know so much more about the virus,” he says.
Indeed, what a difference two years make. Vaccines provide us with protection and immunity, and the availability of drugs like steroids, tocilizumab, molnupiravir, and nirmatrelvir-ritonavir are contributing to the low casualty rate.
Does this mean we’ll soon be reading poetry about how we finally licked COVID-19? Buensalido is cautiously optimistic.
“Yes, malapit na natin matalo ang COVID-19 because it is down for the count!” he says. “But it is still here. So please be patient. Relax a bit, but not too much. Not yet. Let us end the COVID-19 pandemic first.”