A Friendly Babala (from a National Artist to IBAGIW Visitors)

Since the lockdowns in March, my email messages ended “Hoy, h’wag kalimutan ang 11^th Commandment!!” Followed playfully by “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Covid.” Signed: Kidlat Tahimik.

Nine months later, in a routine swab test at the Triage at Baguio Convention Center diagnosed this National Artist to be POSITIVE for COVID-19. And regretfully, I had infected my wife Katrin. Wow! Doble suntok sa kalusugan!

Question: Na karma ba si Kidlat Tahimik? Had I been too flippant about this health issue? Yes, it was meant to be humorous (patawa) in tone. But, it was a dead serious warning to my friends to please stay safe. 

Today, we are in a self-imposed quarantine. Daily, we are visited by a throng of municipal medics. These PPE-dressed health workers arrive in an ambulance. They monitor our temperature, our blood oxygen count, any hardness of breathing. They handle their two septuagenarian patients like their own lolo and lola. Ma-kapwa sila.

“Frontliners” became a beautiful living word we can now appreciate from our heart.

Ibagiw Artfest in time of COVID

Our self-quarantine comes after our IBAGIW Festivities last month. We had invited the world to celebrate our Bangon Baguio event! With our theme BREATH BAGUIO!, we rejuvenated Baguio as a health resort and culture center in the north. Five weeks, Baguio festooned into a town brimming with artworks and artisan displays. 

After Mayor Benjie Magalong’s strict social distancing protocols Baguio became a model LGU for pandemic management. Baguio remains the standard for contact tracing. IBAGIW was meant to show Baguio is on the way to recovery.

With the success of IBAGIW, we artists showed our city in the mountains can have its cake and eat it too. The curated art Festival mounted in COVID-19 times, was envisioned by artists as some sort of Vaccine to the lockdowned souls of Baguio.

As a National Artist active during IBAGIW, I feel obliged to openly declare my case. Hopefully for any of you who might have been exposed to my presence during the festival, please take precautions and monitor your health— just in case!

Since the festival opening on 6 November, Kidlat Tahimik has been at the Baguio Convention Center almost daily. Numerous visitors I have guided through the exhibits and agreed to request for selfies with the National Artist. 

Regretfully, I may have had lapses in face-mask security – posing for a selfie sans mask. Inadvertently, I might have exposed myself to the coronavirus. In turn, this should be of concern for those of you who were exposed to me. 

FYI, since the Swab Test wherein my wife and I tested positive, many people with whom I had intensive contact have all taken swab tests – our sons, the carpenters whom I worked with, artists I chatted with, our close in staff etc. So far, all have been diagnosed negative. Siguro mild-COVID itong caso namin. 

If you have not seen any signs of fever or loss of appetite or fatigue, you need not worry. Ingat po lang kayo.

Kidlat Tahimik (National Artist of Baguio)

– Rappler.com

 (Watch for the authors last installment on Frontliners up Front—a close up view from the foxholes of Covid War. Coming next year on Tandang Sora Day Jan 6 2021. )