The revelations of January 2020

THE year 2019 concludes in December with floods and heavy rains in Rwanda, Indonesia, Mozambique, among many other places. In Bangladesh, 50 people perished after a cold wave swept across the country. People were dying of pneumonia, with the world not aware that soon a heavier cause for the same disease would be identified.

Northern Syria is flooded in the month of December, with children already casualties of war caused by humans being the first victims. In Fiji, a cyclone brings destruction to the small island.

By mid-December, not rains nor wet storms would ravage Australia but fires. The deadliest days of the inferno would take place between December and the coming of the New Year. The opposition in nature would not escape the observant human groups.

By the second week of January of 2020, South Africa feels below-average rainfall. Experts predict that this onset of drought may extend up to the end of the month. Zimbabwe is having the same climate. In the same continent, in Kenya, rainfall continues threatening a massive flooding.

In the same week, locusts attacked the plants and surroundings in Somalia, Sudan and other parts of Africa. But as there is strong, persistent rain in Somalia, entomologists and other agricultural experts fear the weather will enable breeding of more locusts.

By the middle of January, the death toll of animals in the burning forests and woodlands in Australia totals a billion.

In Greece, a rare strong cold front covers the glorious country with snow. The wintry conditions dispel the common adjective about the country as balmy and sunny.

It is in the first week of January that the Chinese health authorities call attention to a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan. Soon, the world health authorities label this new coronavirus a “novel” type. Health experts would disclose that, after several testing, they are ruling out SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, influenza, avian inf luenza, adenovirus and other common respiratory pathogens that remain the scourge around the globe.

Meanwhile, in Burundi, the data report malaria incidence breaching 8 million cases. After a sector in the government has spread fake news about the ill effects of polio vaccine on children, the Philippines disclose some 16 polio cases.

Still, in the Philippines, Taal Volcano erupts. The volcano that is touted to be the smallest is revealed to be wider and, it seems, more vehement than the other active volcano in Bicol, the majestic Mayon.

Modifiers about the volcanoes become the turfing debates as to which is more splendid.

Still, in the Philippines, politicians travel to a place located near Taal to hold their sessions. For what reason, only the gods and spirits would know.

The declaration of emergency due to the eruption jacks up the price of face masks. Commerce not compassion dominate the landscape of this accursed republic. Not even the gods and spirits—or perhaps, they know —would anticipate an emergent need for face masks.

As the ashes—or the battle smokes—settle, the coronavirus is finally clarified as having reached a scary proportion. It would take more weeks, after a man dies of the virus, that the World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak as a global health emergency.

As carried by news bureaus, “WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is quoted as saying “The main reason for this declaration is not what is happening in China, but what is happening in other countries.” After all the fear, the crisis is no more in the disease but in the economic well-being of the country confronting the virus. Other countries—and there are many—with inefficient and less evolved health systems are expected to suffer from the virus when it afflicts the said sites.

Racism takes center stage as the discourse on health prevention prevent Filipinos from pointing to China as the source of the scourge. The Internet contributes to this warped sense of world brotherhood and sisterhood. The critic of health protocols in the country is threatened and maligned online.

The government scolds the Filipino people about being “bigoted,” and are asked to think kindly of China.

A global crisis is transformed into a rom-com of understanding and love. And yet, in churches, the faithful are asked to refrain from holding each other’s hand during certain parts of the Mass. Soon, we will not be witnessing the party atmosphere in some churches as elite families and their members hug each other when the priest merely calls for a peace-be-with-you gesture.

It is just the beginning of the 2020, and we are all already facing all these calamities and world crisis.

The events have overtaken all our consciousness that we do not have time to ruminate on the manifestations of climate change.

Was it Sun Tzu, a military strategist and philosopher, who warned that, until death comes, we should not fear any calamities? Well, even before the deaths, I wait for religions to burst forth because terrible tragedies always bring us back to the Divine, even back to those who urge us to buy candles instead of specific masks, to those who blackmail us into prayers rather than contemplate and critique policies. As for the geomancers, it seems the Metal Rat has proven to be made of weak plaster. As for me, I look at the color of the skies and the swirl of clouds, and read therein the onset of f loods, and tempests, and temptations.