Covid-19 conspiracy theories

The lockdown, enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) or similar appropriate euphemisms is a correct attempt to contain a deadly pandemic. Other countries are implementing this with varying degrees of success. My medium-sized family with three grandkids (aged 8, 6 and 4), two parents, two grandparents, nannies and kasambahay (househelps) — sequestered in a fairly large house with a modest garden — are enjoying the novelty of it all, at least in the provinces (five others are quarantined in Manila). Forced interaction within a confined space is akin to a prison without bars, armed guards and a bartolina (isolation chamber) and absent corporal punishment although the intermittent shouting and cries and the general ruckus that erupt between unique, dynamic and highly independent siblings are, at least to the lolo (grandfather), analogous to Holy Week penance.

Our home ECQ has unstructured amusements, leisure, entertainment and recreation privileges as contrasted to the proverbial “doing time” or incarceration. At least for a month, the inmates make their own rules, although in the hierarchy of authority — the rankings are confused as to who are the wardens; the adults or the little ones. Discipline is loose and bedtime curfew is unenforceable as the kids, with no school, consider every night a “movie night.”