essay for pandemic tagalog

Sanaysay Tungkol Sa COVID-19 – Maikling Sanaysay Ukol Sa Pandemya

Halimbawa ng sanaysay tungkol sa covid-19.

SANAYSAY TUNGKOL SA COVID-19 – Sa panahong ito, milyun-milyong Pilipino ang naapektuhan ng pandemyag COVID-19.

Sa paksang ito, magbibigay kami ng maikling sanaysay tungkol sa pandemya at sa mga katotohanang ipinakita nito sa ating mga kababayan.

Pandemya, Ang Masakit na Katotohanan

Pagdating ng balita tungkol sa COVID-19, hindi natin sineryoso. Pinapasok ang mga dayuhan kahit na ito’y delikado. Pinagtawanan natin ginawa lamang na balita, sinabihang kumain tayo ng saging at palakasin lamang ang resistensiya.

Ngunit hindi ito naging sapat at padami lamang ng padami ang mga kaso nito sa Pilipinas. Subalit, sinasabihan pa rin ang publiko na kontrolado ang sitwasyon at walang kailangang ikatakot.

Iyon naman ay maiitindihan, ayaw natin ng kaguluhan. Magdudulot lamang ito ng karagdagang problema sa ating lipunan. Pero sana naman ay binigyang pansin ang tawag ng mga experto tungkol sa sakit.

Ang katotohanan ay hindi tayo handa. Ang katotohanan ay hindi sapat ang ating ginawa para mapigilan ang pagdaragsa ng sakit buong Pilipinas na ang nakakaranas. Masakit mang isipin pero sa kasalukuyang panahon wala nang makakatakas.

Eto ang katotohanan na dapat nating intindihin. Dapat nating pag-aralan at dapat nating seryosohin. Mga doktor, nurse, at mga tauhang medical, araw araw ang sakripisyo para lamang sa atin.

Pero ang masakit na katotohanan ay ang karamihan sa kanila ay napabayaan. Marami na ang namatay, pero hanggang ngayun, hustisya pa rin ay ipinaglalaban.

Masakit nga ang katotohanan, pero paano tayo makakatulong? Iyon dapat ang tanong natin sa ating sarili. Hindi bakuna ang dapat hanapin kundi tamang sistema. Dahil pag may tamang sistema susunod na ng mabilisan ang disiplina.

Masakit man ang katotohanan pero mahirap nang ibalik ang dati nating buhay. Subalit kailangan nating magkaisa para malabanan ang pandemya.

BASAHIN RIN: Wika Sa Lipunan – Mga Gamit At Kahalagahan Ng Wika Sa Komunidad

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Mga Pandemya

Maghanda sa Pandemya

Manatiling Ligtas sa Panahon ng

Manatiling Ligtas Pagkatapos ng

Kaugnay na Nilalaman

Ang isang pandemya ay isang pagkalat ng sakit na sumasaklaw sa ilang bansa at nakakaapekto sa maraming tao. Ang mga pandemya ay pinakamadalas dulot ng mga virus na madaling kumakalat sa mga tao.

Ang bagong virus ay maaaring lumabas mula kahit saan ay mabilis na kumakalat sa buong mundo. Mahirap mahulaan kung kailan o saan lalabas ang susunod na bagong pandemya.

Kung nadeklara ang Pandemya:

• Madalas hugasan ang mga kamay mo gamit ang sabon at tubig ng hindi bababa sa 20 segundo at subukang huwag hipuin ang iyong mga mata, ilong o bibig.
• Magpanatili ng distansiya ng hindi bababa sa anim na talampakan sa pagitan mo at mga tao na hindi bahagi ng iyong sambahayan.
• Takpan ang iyong bibig at ilong gamit ang mask kapag nasa publiko.
• Linisin at i-disinfect ang mga madalas nahihipong bagay at mga surface.
• Manatili sa bahay hangga't maaari para mapigilan ang pagkalat ng sakit.
• Sundan ang patnubay ng  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  (CDC).

Paano Ihanda ang Sarili Mo para sa Pandemya

• Matutunan kung paano kumakalat ang mga sakit  para makatulong na protektahan ang sarili mo at ang mga ibang tao. Maaaring ikalat ang mga virus sa mga tao, mula sa hindi buhay na bagay at ng mga taong nahawa pero walang mga sintomas.
• Maghanda para sa posibilidad ng mga paaralan, lugar ng trabaho at mga sentro ng komunidad na masarhan.  Imbestigahan at maghanda para sa virtual na koordinasyon para sa paaralan, trabaho (telework) at mga panlipunang aktibidad.
• Kumalap ng mga supply sakaling kailangan mong manatili sa bahay ng ilang araw o linggo.  Maaaring kasama ng mga supply ang mga supply sa paglilinis, hindi nabubulok na pagkain, mga reseta at nakaboteng tubig. Unti-unting bumili ng mga supply para masiguro na ang lahat ay nagkaroon ng pagkakataong bilhin ang kailangan nila.
• Lumikha ng plano sa emergency para malaman mo at ng pamilya mo ang gagawin at ano ang kailangan mo sakaling may maganap na outbreak. Pag-isipan kung paano maaaring maapektuhan ng pandemya ang mga plano mo para sa mga ibang emergency.
• Repasuhin ang iyong mga policy sa pangkalusugang insurance  para maunawaan kung ano ang kanilang nasasaklawan, kabilang ang mga opsiyon sa telemedicine.
• Lumikha ng protektado ng password na mga digital na kopya ng mahahalagang dokumento  at iimbak ito sa ligtas na lugar. Mag-ingat sa mga scam at panloloko.

Manatiling Ligtas Sa Panahon ng Pandemya

Sundin ang mga pinakabagong patnubay mula sa CDC . Sumangguni sa iyong lokal na departamento ng pampublikong kalusugan ng lokal at estad para sa update sa bakuna at pagte-test.

Magpabakuna.  Ini-istimula ng mga bakuna ang iyong immune system para gumawa ng mga antibody, kaya ang mga bakuna ay aktuwal na nakakapigil sa mga sakit.

• Kumilos para mapigilan ang pagkalat ng sakit.  Takpan ang mga pag-ubo at pagbahing. Magsuot ng mask sa publiko. Manatili sa bahay kung may sakit (maliban kung kukuha ng medikal na pag-aalaga). I-disinfect ang mga surface. Maghugas ng mga kamay gamit ang sabon at tubig ng hindi bababa sa 20 segundo. Kung walang sabon at tubig, gumamit ng hand sanitizer na naglalaman ng hindi bababa sa 60 porsiyentong alkohol. Manatiling anim na talampakan ang layo mula sa mga taong hindi bahagi ng sambahayan mo.
• Kung naniniwala kang nalantad ka sa sakit,  kontakin ang iyong doktor, sundin ang mga tagubilin sa quarantine mula sa mga medikal na tagapaglaan at subaybayan ang mga sintomas mo. Kung nakakaranas ka ng medikal na emergency, tumawag sa 9-1-1 at mag-shelter in place suot ang mask, kung posible, hanggang dumating ang tulong.
• Magbahagi ng tumpak na impormasyon tungkol sa sakit  sa mga kaibigan, pamilya at mga tao sa social media. Ang pagbabahagi ng masamang impormasyon tungkol sa sakit o mga paggamot para sa sakit ay maaaring may seryosong kalalabasan sa kalusugan. Tandaan na nasasaktan ng stigma ang lahat ng tao at maaaring magdulot ng diskriminasyon laban sa mga tao, lugar o mga bansa.
• Alamin na normal na makaramdam ng pagkabalisa o pagkabahala.  Makipag-ugnayan nang virtual sa iyong komunidad sa pamamagitan ng mga tawag sa video at telepono. Alagaan ang iyong katawan at makipag-usap sa isang tao kung nararamdaman mong nababagabag ka.

Manatiling Ligtas Makalipas ang Pandemya

• Pananatili sa bahay kapag may sakit ka (maliban kung kukuha ng medikal na pag-aalaga).
• Pagsunod sa patnubay ng iyong tagapaglaan ng pangangalaga sa kalusugan.
• Pagtakip sa mga pag-ubo at pagbahing gamit ang tisyu.
• Paghuhugas ng mga kamay mo gamit ang sabon at tubig ng hindi bababa sa 20 segundo.
• Siguruhing suriin ang plano ng pamilya mo sa emergency at magsagawa ng mga napapanahong update.
• Magtrabaho kasama ng komunidad mo  para pag-usapan ang mga leksiyon na natutunan mo mula sa pandemya. Magpasya kung paano mo magagamit ang mga karanasang ito para maging mas handa sa mga pandemya sa hinaharap.
• Novel Pandemic Info Sheet
• Mga Protektadong Pagkilos na Pananaliksik para sa Novel Pandemics
• www.flu.gov  (CDC)
• Paghahanda at Tugon sa Emergency   (CDC)
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services  (HHS)

Last Updated: 12/13/2023

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Filipinos face the mental toll of the Covid-19 pandemic — a photo essay

BY ORANGE OMENGAN

Depression, anxiety, and other mental health-related illnesses are on the rise among millennials as they face the pressure to be functional amidst pandemic fatigue. Omengan's photo essay shows three of the many stories of mental health battles, of struggling to stay afloat despite the inaccessibility of proper mental health services, which worsened due to the series of lockdowns in the Philippines.

"I was just starting with my new job, but the pandemic triggered much anxiety causing me to abandon my apartment in Pasig and move back to our family home in Mabalacat, Pampanga." 

This was Mano Dela Cruz's quick response to the initial round of lockdowns that swept the nation in March 2020. 

Anxiety crept up on Mano, who was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type II with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder traits. The 30-year-old writer is just one of many Filipinos experiencing the mental health fallout of the pandemic. 

Covid-19 infections in the Philippines have reached 1,149,925 cases as of May 17. The pandemic is unfolding simultaneously with the growing number of Filipinos suffering from mental health issues. At least 3.6 million Filipinos suffer from mental, neurological, and substance use disorders, according to Frances Prescila Cuevas, head of the National Mental Health Program under the Department of Health.

As the situation overwhelmed him, Mano had to let go of his full-time job. “At the start of the year, I thought I had my life all together, but this pandemic caused great mental stress on me, disrupting my routine and cutting my source of income,” he said. 

Mano has also found it difficult to stay on track with his medications. “I don’t have insurance, and I do not save much due to my medical expenses and psychiatric consultations. On a monthly average, my meds cost about P2,800. With my PWD (person with disability) card, I get to avail myself of the 20% discount, but it's still expensive. On top of this, I pay for psychiatric consultations costing P1,500 per session. During the pandemic, the rate increased to P2,500 per session lasting only 30 minutes due to health and safety protocols.”

The pandemic has resulted in substantial job losses as some businesses shut down, while the rest of the workforce adjusted to the new norm of working from home. 

Ryan Baldonado, 30, works as an assistant human resource manager in a business process outsourcing company. The pressure from work, coupled with stress and anxiety amid the community quarantine, took a toll on his mental health. 

Before the pandemic, Ryan said he usually slept for 30 hours straight, often felt under the weather, and at times subjected himself to self-harm. "Although the symptoms of depression have been manifesting in me through the years, due to financial concerns, I haven't been clinically diagnosed. I've been trying my best to be functional since I'm the eldest, and a lot is expected from me," he said.

As extended lockdowns put further strain on his mental health, Ryan mustered the courage to try his company's online employee counseling service. "The free online therapy with a psychologist lasted for six months, and it helped me address those issues interfering with my productivity at work," he said.

He was often told by family or friends: "Ano ka ba? Dapat mas alam mo na ‘yan. Psych graduate ka pa man din!" (As a psych graduate, you should know better!)

Ryan said such comments pressured him to act normally. But having a degree in psychology did not make one mentally bulletproof, and he was reminded of this every time he engaged in self-harming behavior and suicidal thoughts, he said.

"Having a degree in psychology doesn't save you from depression," he said. 

Depression and anxiety are on the rise among millennials as they face the pressure to perform and be functional amid pandemic fatigue. 

Karla Longjas, 27, is a freelance artist who was initially diagnosed with major depression in 2017. She could go a long time without eating, but not without smoking or drinking. At times, she would cut herself as a way to release suppressed emotions. Karla's mental health condition caused her to get hospitalized twice, and she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder in 2019. 

"One of the essentials I had to secure during the onset of the lockdown was my medication, for fear of running out," Karla shared. 

With her family's support, Karla can afford mental health care. 

She has been spending an average of P10,000 a month on medication and professional fees for a psychologist and a psychiatrist. "The frequency of therapy depends on one's needs, and, at times, it involves two to three sessions a month," she added. 

Amid the restrictions of the pandemic, Karla said her mental health was getting out of hand. “I feel like things are getting even crazier, and I still resort to online therapy with my psychiatrist,” she said.

“I've been under medication for almost four years now with various psychologists and psychiatrists. I'm already tired of constantly searching and learning about my condition. Knowing that this mental health illness doesn't get cured but only gets manageable is wearing me out," she added.    In the face of renewed lockdowns, rising cases of anxiety, depression, and suicide, among others, are only bound to spark increased demand for mental health services.  

MANO DELA CRUZ

Writer Mano Dela Cruz, 30, is shown sharing stories of his manic episodes, describing the experience as being on ‘top of the world.’ Individuals diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type II suffer more often from episodes of depression than hypomania. Depressive periods, ‘the lows,’ translate to feelings of guilt, loss of pleasure, low energy, and thoughts of suicide. 

Mano says the mess in his room indicates his disposition, whether he's in a manic or depressive state. "I know that I'm not stable when I look at my room and it's too cluttered. There are days when I don't have the energy to clean up and even take a bath,” he says. 

Mano was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder Type II in 2016, when he was in his mid-20s. His condition comes with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder traits, requiring lifelong treatment with antipsychotics and mood stabilizers such as antidepressants.

Mano resorts to biking as a form of exercise and to release feel-good endorphins, which helps combat depression, according to his psychiatrist.

Mano waits for his psychiatric consultation at a hospital in Angeles, Pampanga.

Mano shares a laugh with his sister inside their home. “It took a while for my family to understand my mental health illness,” he says. It took the same time for him to accept his condition.

RYAN BALDONADO

Ryan Baldonado, 30, shares his mental health condition in an online interview. Ryan is in quarantine after experiencing symptoms of Covid-19.

KARLA LONGJAS

Karla Longjas, 27, does a headstand during meditative yoga inside her room, which is filled with bottles of alcohol. Apart from her medications, she practices yoga to have mental clarity, calmness, and stress relief. 

Karla shares that in some days, she has hallucinations and tries to sketch them. 

In April 2019, Karla was inflicting harm on herself, leading to her two-week hospitalization as advised by her psychiatrist. In the same year, she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.  The stigma around her mental illness made her feel so uncomfortable that she had to use a fake name to hide her identity. 

Karla buys her prescriptive medications in a drug store. Individuals clinically diagnosed with a psychosocial disability can avail themselves of the 20% discount for persons with disabilities.

Karla Longjas is photographed at her apartment in Makati. Individuals diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) exhibit symptoms such as self-harm, unstable relationships, intense anger, and impulsive or self-destructive behavior. BPD is a dissociative disorder that is not commonly diagnosed in the Philippines.

This story is one of the twelve photo essays produced under the Capturing Human Rights fellowship program, a seminar and mentoring project

organized by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and the Photojournalists' Center of the Philippines. 

Check the other photo essays here.

Larry Monserate Piojo – "Terminal: The constant agony of commuting amid the pandemic"

Orange Omengan – "Filipinos face the mental toll of the Covid-19 pandemic"

Lauren Alimondo – "In loving memory"

Gerimara Manuel – "Pinagtatagpi-tagpi: Mother, daughter struggle between making a living and modular learning"

Pau Villanueva – "Hinubog ng panata: The vanishing spiritual traditions of Aetas of Capas, Tarlac"

Bernice Beltran – "Women's 'invisible work'"

Dada Grifon – "From the cause"

Bernadette Uy – "Enduring the current"

Mark Saludes – "Mission in peril"

EC Toledo – "From sea to shelf: The story before a can is sealed"

Ria Torrente – "HIV positive mother struggles through the Covid-19 pandemic"

Sharlene Festin – "Paradise lost"

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Pisay student tops essay writing tilt on COVID-19

A Grade 12 student of the Philippine Science High School-Western Visayas Campus (PSHS-WVC) emerged as Grand Prize winner in the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Tropical Medicine and Public Health (SEAMEO TROPMED) Network 55th Founding Anniversary Essay Contest.

Altair Mizar Emboltura bagged the Grand Prize after besting 210 entries in the Senior High School Category from the member-countries of the SEAMEO TROPMED, the PSHS said in a statement on Saturday, Oct. 16.

Emboltura’s winning piece is titled, “A Thief, A Tyrant, A Teacher”. In his essay, Emboltura, editor-in-chief of PSHS-WVC’s school paper Banaag, discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic significantly redefined aspects of life.

This year’s theme of the SEAMEO TROPMED essay writing contest is “What COVID-19 means to me”. It focused on the integration and inter-relation between Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) # 3 “Good Health and Well-being” and SDG # 4 “Quality Education”, according to the PSHS.

Among the objectives of the essay writing competition were to gather information related to COVID-19 effect on students; motivate students to write and discuss their perspectives about COVID-19; promote listening to students’ voices; and document these perspectives for further use in school programmes and policies.

Emboltura cited the crucial role of the youth in the country’s fight against COVID-19.

“I believe in the power of the proactive youth. Our role in winning the battle against COVID-19 includes inspiring, impacting, and speaking up not just for our fellow youth but for our whole community as well. However, all of our dedication, effort, and active participation would be put to waste if our leaders won’t listen to us,” he said.

“I call unto our leaders to not just hear us but also listen to us because our voice matters, especially in this unprecedented time,” he added.

The PSHS said the student leader is planning to pursue either biology, public health, or an accelerated medicine course in college, but his ultimate goal is to be a physician for the Filipino people.

Emboltura expressed hope that the healthcare workers will receive the necessary assistance from the government, including wage hike and hazard pay.

“Young people like me have been championing change in our fight against COVID-19 from the very beginning. As digital natives, social media became our biggest platform to speak up, to initiate and conduct countless community projects especially for the underprivileged and marginalized sectors of our society, and to advocate for noble causes such as the #NoStudentLeftBehind,” he said.

Emboltura was named as Young Achiever Awardee by the Municipality of Oton, and Outstanding Student of Iloilo Awardee 2020 by JCI Regatta.

He was also selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Junior High School Students of Iloilo for Academic Year 2019-2020 by The Outstanding Students Circle of Iloilo (OSCI).

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The Importance of Well-Being on Resiliency of Filipino Adults During the COVID-19 Enhanced Community Quarantine: A Necessary Condition Analysis

Desiderio s. camitan, iv.

1 College of Arts and Sciences, Manila Tytana Colleges, Pasay, Philippines

Lalaine N. Bajin

2 Psycli-Nik Psychological Assessment and Intervention Services, Zamboanga City, Philippines

Associated Data

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/ Supplementary Material , further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

Nation-wide community quarantines and social distancing are part of the new normal because of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Since extensive and prolonged lockdowns are relatively novel experiences, not much is known about the well-being of individuals in such extreme situations. This research effort investigated the relationship between well-being elements and resiliency of 533 Filipino adults who were placed under the nationwide enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants comprised of 376 females (70.56%) and 157 males (29.45%). The median and mode ages of the participants is 23 years, while 25 is the mean age. PERMA Profiler was used to measure participants’ well-being elements, while Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale-10 (CD-RISC-10) was used to measure their resiliency. Collected data were analyzed using the regression model and necessary condition analysis. This study corroborated that all the five pillars of well-being are significant positive correlates of resiliency ( p < 0.00) in quarantined adults. The results shown accomplishment ( β = 0.447, p < 0.01) positively predicts resiliency, while negative emotions ( β = −0.171, p < 0.00) negatively predict resiliency. Lastly, the five pillars of well-being are necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions (ceiling envelopment with free disposal hull, CE-FDH p < 0.00) of resiliency. Our results cast a new light on well-being elements as constraints rather than enablers of resiliency. This novel result shows that optimum resiliency is only possible when all the five pillars of well-being are taken care of and when a person is at least minimally contented with their physical health. The present findings underscore the importance of a holistic as against an atomistic approach to maintaining good mental health, which suggests that deficiencies in certain areas of well-being may not be fully addressed by overcompensating on other areas, as all five pillars of well-being are necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions of resiliency. The study ends with the recommendation for the use of necessary condition analysis to study both classical and novel psychological research problems.

The Importance of Well-Being on Resiliency of Filipino Adults During the COVID-19 Who are Community Quarantined

The infectious Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which causes respiratory illness includes flu-like symptoms such as cough, fever, and in more severe cases, breathing difficulties. COVID-19 is mainly spread through contact with an infected person who sneezes or coughs. It can be acquired when a person touches their eyes, nose, or mouth after touching objects or surfaces that have the virus on it ( World Health Organization, 2020 ). Starting December 2019, countries imposed travel bans and asked individuals who have possibly been exposed to the contagion to isolate themselves in a dedicated quarantine facility or at home ( Brooks et al., 2020 ) at an unprecedented scale. The Philippines reported its first case of COVID-19 on January 30, 2020. Since then, the number of reported cases exponentially increased by the day ( ABS-CBN Investigative and Research Group, 2020 ). As of December 12, 2020, 447,039 infected cases were reported throughout the country. Of the total number of cases, 409,329 have recovered, and 8,709 have died ( Department of Health, 2020 ).

As a response to the growing threat of the pandemic, the entire Luzon was placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ; Medialdea, 2020 ). Shortly, both Visayas and Mindanao followed suit. The said measure involves draconian restrictions: that include the establishment of checkpoints in most cities; the suspension of classes in all levels; the prohibition of mass gatherings; the temporary shutting down of non-essential businesses; the banning of public utilized utility vehicles; and the strict implementation of home isolation. Although it was initially planned to end on April 12, 2020 ( Abueg, 2020 ), several subsequent recommendations both from the national and local governments extended the nationwide community quarantine until December 31, 2020 ( CNN Philippines Staff, 2020 ). As the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) shrank 16.5% in the second quarter of 2020, the Philippines officially entered recession as an effect of the extended quarantines ( Agence France-Presse, 2020 ). While quarantine is often among the initial responses against an emerging infectious disease ( Parmet and Sinha, 2020 ), it is often unpleasant for those who are required to submit to it and may lead to several harmful conditions for some persons ( Hawryluck et al., 2004 ; Brooks et al., 2020 ). Hence, the psychological effects of quarantine have received considerable attention. Barbisch et al. (2015) reported that losing autonomy, isolation away from loved ones, uncertainty, and boredom could lead to adverse effects on an individual’s well-being. Following the imposition of cordon sanitaire in previous outbreaks, substantial anger, anxiety and even an increase in suicide rates have been reported ( Brooks et al., 2020 ). Similarly, the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) in the Philippines reported that depression and other mental health issues were on the rise after imposing ECQ in different provinces in the country ( Tenorio, 2020 ).

Well-Being and Its Elements

It is important to note that while quarantines are often unpleasant, their effect on people diverge. While there are individuals who experience mental health issues, there are also those who are more resilient and can move on with their lives. This highlights the importance of studying not only how individuals suffer in light of community quarantines, but also how they cope, and even flourish in the face of such challenging times. Seligman (2011) argued that even in difficult situations, human beings are motivated to thrive and not just merely survive. According to Fredrickson and Losada (2005) , flourishing means living “within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience.” Based on this definition, resilience appears to arise from flourishing. Well-being predicts resiliency. For clarity, the terms “flourishing,” “thriving,” and “well-being” are used interchangeably in the literature ( Butler and Kern, 2016 ). Therefore, we also use the terms interchangeably here.

Well-being Theory of Seligman (2011) advocates that flourishing arises from five well-being pillars-Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment, hence PERMA. It is important to note that no single element defines well-being, but each contributes to it. Positive emotions include an extensive variety of feelings, which include excitement, satisfaction, pride, and awe. Previous reviews highlight the important role of these emotions in positive life outcomes ( Butler and Kern, 2016 ). Engagement involves activities that stimulate and develop upon an individual’s interests. Csikszentmihalyi (2009) argues that true engagement leads to a state of deep and effortless involvement where an individual is completely absorbed in an activity that often leads to a sense of joy and lucidity. Relationships are social connections important in stimulating positive emotions. They can either be work-related, familial, romantic, and even platonic. The experiences that contribute to well-being are often amplified through our relationships. Positive relationships have been linked to positive outcomes such as better physical health, healthier behaviors, less psychopathology, and lower mortality risk ( Tay et al., 2013 ). A sense of meaning is derived from having a direction in life, belonging to a cause larger than the self, and serving a purpose greater than one’s immediate needs ( Steger, 2012 ). Such activities provide a sense that life is valuable and worthwhile. Various societal institutions such as religion, politics, justice, and community social causes enable a sense of meaning. Accomplishments are pursuits toward and reaching goals, mastery, and efficacy to complete tasks ( Butler and Kern, 2016 ) in various domains such as the workplace, in sports and games, and even in hobbies and interests. Seligman (2011) argued that people pursue accomplishments even when they do not result in positive emotions, meaning, or relationships. Although PERMA was developed mainly within the Western context, several researches found that PERMA is experienced in culturally consistent manners in non-Western societies such as the United Arab Emirates ( Lambert and Pasha-Zaidi, 2016 ), Hong-Kong ( Lai et al., 2018 ), and the Philippines ( Nebrida and Dullas, 2018 ).

Defining Resilience

Over the past decade, resilience has become a popular concept in both research and clinical practice ( Kumpfer, 2002 ; Walsh-Dilley and Wolford, 2015 ). Despite the lack of consensus in how it is defined ( Vella and Pai, 2019 ), it is accepted that resilience involves the positive adaptation following a stressful or adverse experience ( Porterfield et al., 2010 ). Most definitions acknowledge two key points about resilience ( Herrman et al., 2011 ). First, is that various factors interact with it. For example, personal characteristics such as personality traits ( Oshio et al., 2018 ), self-esteem ( Karatas and Cakar, 2011 ), and even age ( Diehl and Hay, 2010 ) influence resilience. Social and community factors ( Harms et al., 2018 ) such as secure attachments, the presence of a role model ( Levine, 2003 ), family stability ( Grubman, 2018 ), and culture ( Ungar, 2008 ) affect the ability to cope with daily struggles. Second, resilience is time and context-specific and may not be present across all life domains. Resilience appears to be receptive to the influence of specific situations ( Hayman et al., 2017 ) such as unique stressors ( Jex et al., 2013 ) like war and other happenstances ( Besser et al., 2014 ).

While the aforementioned literature provides key insights into the definition, factors, and contexts of resilience, most research focuses on factors are outside the control of the individual. While these researches are important in explaining the development of resilience, they lack emphasis on positive mechanisms, which are behaviors a person can perform to facilitate resilience. While resilience has been studied both in daily and unique stressors, none focused on the novel situation of wide range community quarantines. Therefore, despite the abundance of resilience-related research, the question remains “What positive mechanisms are involved in the resilience of people who are subjected to quarantine?”

The Present Study

In this paper, we introduced a novel approach in understanding the necessary but not sufficient nature of the aforementioned positive aspects of well-being in predicting resiliency. We used Dul (2016) Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA), which seeks to identify necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions in data sets ( Dul, 2018 ). A necessary condition is a crucial factor in an outcome. If it is not in place, the outcome will not be achieved, but its sole presence does not guarantee that the outcome will be obtained. Without the necessary condition, however, there is a certain failure, which may not be compensated by other determinants of the outcome. Necessary (but not sufficient) conditions widely exist in real-life. For example, the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is a necessary-but-not-sufficient condition for COVID-19 ( World Health Organization, 2020 ). Without SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, an individual will not acquire COVID-19. However, even with SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, an individual may or may not acquire COVID-19. In the same light, a college student who wants to pass the course, Introduction to Psychology (the outcome) needs to attend 80% of lecture hours (necessary conditions). However, attending class regularly does not guarantee passing the course as other requirements (examinations, seat-works, research work, and journal critique paper) play a role in a student’s grade. Yet, if the student incurs too many absences and tardiness, failure is guaranteed. As seen in the aforementioned examples, necessary causes are not automatically sufficient. They can be seen as constraints, barriers, or obstacles one needs to deal with to arrive at the desired outcome.

While well-being and resiliency are closely related concepts ( Hu et al., 2015 ) Flourishing model of Seligman’s (2011) perceives resiliency as the result of both “surviving” and “thriving” psychological characteristics. This theoretical relationship between well-being and resilience has gained empirical support in recent years ( Harms et al., 2018 ). For example, Martínez-Martí and Ruch (2017) and Burns and Anstey (2010) demonstrated that measures of well-being are not simply redundant with self-report scales of resilience. At the same time, while the relationship between these two concepts are robust, it is rarely straightforward ( Harms et al., 2018 ). Interestingly, some researchers ( Fredrickson et al., 2003 ; Tugade and Fredrickson, 2004 ; Ong et al., 2006 , 2010 ; Kuntz et al., 2016 ) argued that optimal levels of PERMA elements predict resilience in normal sample.

In the light of the foregoing, the present study aims to investigate how PERMA predicts the resiliency of community quarantined individuals. An explanation of possible necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions of resiliency during quarantine may have both theoretical and practical value. Theoretically, an investigation of this sort allows the advancement of our understanding of how a multitude of variables coalesces to produce resiliency in times of quarantine and social isolation. This is significant as wide-range and prolonged quarantines are relatively novel experiences. Hence, not much is known about its psychological implications for human beings. Psychological interventions may target different necessary-but-not-sufficient variables jointly. Because of NCA’s ability to identify bottleneck variables ( Dul, 2019a ), conditions that must be present for resiliency to be possible, interventions may prioritize bottleneck variables of resiliency to maximize the use of limited resources. Lastly, identifying necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions for resiliency may also help individuals who are quarantined to develop their understanding of the behaviors they need to engage to have resiliency. Following this logic, we hypothesize that:

• H 01 : PERMA elements predict the resiliency of the community-quarantined individuals.
• H 02 : PERMA elements are necessary, but not sufficient conditions, for the resiliency of the community-quarantined individuals.

Methodology

Research design.

To test the assumption that PERMA elements are both sufficient and necessary conditions of resiliency in community quarantined individuals, sufficiency and necessity observational design were used concurrently. In these designs, the conditions (PERMA) and the outcome (resiliency) are observed in real-life context and without the manipulation of the condition. While sufficiency and necessity observational research designs follow the same data gathering procedures, they diverge in data analysis. Dul (2016) argued that NCA is a complement to traditional approaches to analyze relations. As in our research, by using multiple regression we could spot determinants that contribute to resiliency, whereas NCA allowed us to spot critical determinants (constraints) that prevent resiliency from developing. These bottlenecks, when present, prevents resiliency from occurring even when we increase the values of other determinants unless we take away the bottlenecks by increasing the value of the critical determinant. NCA lead us to discover critical determinants that were not part of the determinants identified with the regression model. Using both approaches is critical in adequately understanding the resiliency of individuals who are subjected to the extended ECQ.

Research Participants

Because of the restrictions in both mobility and social interactions as direct consequences of the nationwide ECQ, we used purposive – convenience sampling to recruit Filipino Facebook users who reside in communities placed under the ECQ. The survey was promoted through social media, primarily on Facebook. A total of 541 participants responded to our online survey via Google Form. The minimum age reported was 16 years old, while the maximum age was 64 years old with a median of 23. Because resiliency scores are contingent to age, only those whose ages ranged between emerging adulthood to early middle adulthood (18–40) were included in the study.

Inclusion Criteria

Participants that were considered to partake in the research met the following criteria: first, a participant must be aged 18 to 40 years old. Second, he/she resides in a quarantined area in the Philippines. Third, a participant must be a Filipino citizen as social and cultural factors influence resiliency.

Exclusion Criteria

A participant was excluded in the research because of the following conditions: first, a participant aged less than 18 years old and over 40 years old, a participant who refused to completely answer the online survey questionnaires, and a participant who does not reside in a quarantine area in the Philippines.

Ethical Considerations

In dealing with the participants, respect and protection of the privacy of the participants were prioritized. Thus, privacy and anonymity was of paramount importance. Also, voluntary participation of the chosen participants for said the study was important. Participants had the right to withdraw from the study at any phase of the research if they wished to do so.

Potential participants were fully informed regarding the research, full consent was essential and obtained from the participants. The first page of the online questionnaire required participants to check a box to show consent before having access to the survey. The principle of informed consent involved the researchers providing sufficient information and assurances about taking part to allow potential participants to understand the implications of participation and to reach a fully informed, considered, and freely decided about whether to do so, without the exercise of any pressure or coercion. No incentives were provided in return for their participation.

In collecting data through online surveys, we minimized intrusions on privacy, anonymity, and confidentiality. Before data collection, an adequate level of confidentiality of the research data was ensured to the participants to make them feel secured and protected with the information they shared or contributed. Also, any communication about the research was observed with respect and transparency. Ultimately, research participants are not subjected to harm.

Research Instruments

Google Forms was used to gather sociodemographic variables from the sample and deliver the following self-administered scales, which were used to measure the variables of the current study. Specifically, we used the Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale-10 (CD-RISC-10) to measure their resiliency, and the PERMA Profiler to measure participants’ well-being elements.

Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale

The CD-RISC-10 is a 10 item scale that is used to measure resiliency, operationally defined as the ability to “thrive in the face of adversity” ( Connor and Davidson, 2003 ). The unidimensional CD-RISC-10 evaluates several components of psychological pliability: the abilities to adapt to change, manage what comes along, handle stress, stay focused and think clearly, avoid getting discouraged in the face of failure, and handle unpleasant emotions such as pain, sadness, and anger ( Campbell-Sills and Stein, 2007 ). Each item is rated on a five-point range of responses. The total score is computed by getting the sum of all the responses whereby higher scores show high resilience ( Scali et al., 2012 ). Campbell-Sills et al. (2009) maintained that CD-RISC-10 has a median score of 32 with lowest to highest quartiles of 0–29 (Q1), 30–32 (Q2), 33–36 (Q3), and 37–40 (Q4) in general sample. As a widely used scale, CD-RISC-10 has achieved remarkable internal consistency of 0.89 in general population samples. It is both valid and reliable within the context of different cultures, including Filipino samples ( Campbell-Sills and Stein, 2007 ).

PERMA Profiler

The PERMA Profiler is a brief scale that measures the five pillars of well-being: positive emotion, engagement, positive relationships, meaning, and accomplishment, together with negative emotions and health ( Butler and Kern, 2016 ) along a 10-point Likert type scale. Of the 23 items, 15 correspond to the five core elements of well-being (three items per PERMA domain). In addition, eight items were included to test negative emotions (three items), physical health (three items), loneliness (one item), and overall well-being (one item). All items are expressed positively and higher scores denote better well-being except for negative emotions. Subscale scores are calculated by getting the mean of the three items on each subscale, except for loneliness. Overall well-being is calculated by averaging all items except those from the negative emotions subscale. The measure has been used in various samples and was found to have sufficient psychometric properties ( Cobo-Rendón et al., 2020 ). Butler and Kern (2016) reported that adequate reliability is observed for overall well-being and all subscales, α range from 0.71 to 0.94 across eight studies ( N = 31,966). According to Nebrida and Dullas (2018) , the Tagalog version of the PERMA Profiler has a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.842 in 101 Filipino participants.

In the current study ( n = 533), both PERMA Profiler ( α = 0.927) and CD-RISC-10 ( α = 0.915) have an “excellent” internal consistency. These results confirm that the scales are reliable tools for measuring elements of Well-being and Resiliency, respectively, in our sample.

Data Gathering Procedures

Data gathering lasted from March 23 to April 10, 2020, during the first reset of the nationwide extended ECQ. After securing individuals’ interest to take part in the study, we sent potential participants a link to the survey via Facebook Messenger. The first section of the Google Form shows the title of the research and an overview of the current study. After giving consent, participants could fill out the survey. Participants cannot answer the scales without explicitly agreeing to partake in the study. After securing informed consent, each participant was asked to provide their sociodemographic characteristics and then answer the PERMA Profiler and the CD-RSC-10. Answering both scales did not take the participants more than 20 min. After completing the questionnaire, each participant was virtually debriefed.

At any point, should a participant decide not to proceed with the research, they were free to do so with no implications. All the participant has to do was to close the Google Form window and any previously provided data were not recorded.

Data from Google Form were exported to IBM’s Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) and NCA Software for data analysis.

Data Analysis

Frequency and percentage were used to analyze the sociodemographic characteristics of the participants. We used Cronbach’s alpha to determine the internal reliability of the measuring scales. Correlation and multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the relationship between PERMA elements and potential predictors of resiliency. Lastly, we used NCA to analyze whether the core elements of well-being are necessary but not sufficient conditions of resiliency.

There are two steps in NCA ( Dul et al., 2019 ), determining ceiling lines and bottleneck tables are the first. Unlike traditional regression models where a line is drawn through the middle of the data in an XY-plot, a ceiling line is created in NCA. This line distinguishes between areas with cases and areas without cases, the zone found in the upper left-hand corner of the plot. However, exceptions such as outliers and errors may be present in a sample so that the empty zone above the ceiling is not empty ( Karwowski et al., 2016 ). The ceiling line is a non-decreasing line (either a linear step function or a straight line) that shows which level of x (well-being elements) is necessary but not sufficient in producing the desired level of y (resiliency).

Dul (2016) identified two techniques in drawing the ceiling line. The first is the non-parametric Ceiling Envelopment with Free Disposal Hull (CE-FDH), which is a piecewise linear line. It is the default ceiling envelopment technique for NCA because it is flexible and intuitive and applies to dichotomous, discrete, and continuous conditions. The second technique is the parametric Ceiling Regression with Free Disposal Hull (CR-FDH), unlike the CE-FDH, this technique smoothens the piecewise linear lines by using a straight line. Because of this, CR-FDH usually has some observations above the ceiling line. Whereas CE-FDH does not. In further comparing the two techniques, CE-FDH is preferred when a straight line does not represent the data because smoothing reduces the size of the ceiling zone as with dichotomous variables and for discrete and continuous variables with relatively low small data sets. CE-FDH is 100% accurate in drawing the demarcation between observations above and observations below the ceiling line.

Quantifying the accuracy of ceiling lines, effect size, and statistical significance of the necessary conditions and necessary inefficiency are the second and final step ( Dul et al., 2020 ). The area of the empty zone above the ceiling line divided by the area where cases would be possible given the minimum and maximum values of X and Y is the effect size of a necessary condition ( Karwowski et al., 2016 ). Therefore, large effect size shows lower ceiling line and greater limitations that well-being elements have on resiliency. On the other hand, if there is a lack of empty space in the scatter plot then well-being elements are not contingents of resiliency. The effect size of a necessary condition can take the values between 0 and 1 where 0–0.1 corresponds to a small effect, 0.1–0.3 a medium effect, 0.3–0.5 a large effect, and d that is greater than 0.5 a very large effect ( Tynan et al., 2020 ). An R package that allows the calculation of various effect size indicators and inferential statistics useful for hypothesis testing is provided by Dul (2016) . The NCA null hypothesis is that the observed effect size is the same as the effect size calculated using random data ( Dul, 2019b ). An estimation of the probability that the observed necessary condition effect size results from comparing two unrelated variables, otherwise known as permutation test, is used to determine statistical significance in NCA ( Dul et al., 2020 ). Observed values of the x and y variables are randomly paired without replacement. Such pairing continues until the sample size is reached and the process is repeated at least 10,000. The resultant value of p is interpreted using traditional thresholds such as α = 0.05 or α = 0.01. Depending on the context of the research, both significance testing and effect size are useful in determining the theoretical and practical importance of an observed outcome ( Tynan et al., 2020 ). We focus our attention on conditions with both d > 0.5 and p < 0.05.

SPSS was used to analyze the frequency and percentage of various sociodemographic variables, the scales’ reliability, and for generating the Regression Model. R Statistical Software with NCA Package was used to conduct NCA.

Profile of the Participants

Participants comprised 376 females (70.56%) and 157 males (29.45%). The median and mode ages of the participants are 23 years, while the mean age is 25. Among the participants 189 (35.46%) were college students, 293 (54.97%) are employed, and 51 (9.57%) are out of work. Lastly, seven (1.31%) participants reported that they had direct contact with someone who was infected with COVID-19, while 100 (18.76%) reside in communities with known COVID-19 cases and 426 (79.92%) have no exposure to the disease.

PERMA as Predictors of Resiliency

Table 1 summarizes the descriptive statistics and analysis results of the study. Results revealed that the mean resiliency score of the participants is 24.83, with a SD of 7.22. PERMA elements including overall well-being are positive and significantly correlated with resiliency. Interestingly, a subjective sense of health (feeling good and healthy each day) showed only a weak, albeit significant positive correlation with resiliency. Negative emotions and loneliness are negatively correlated with resiliency.

Summary statistics, correlations, and coefficient results for regression analysis of study variables.

R, Pearson correlation coefficient with resiliency; R p , p value of R; Loneliness and health R = −0.211, where p = 0.001. β , standardized beta; B , unstandardized beta; p , probability value of PERMA elements as predictors of resiliency. R 2 of five original PERMA elements including four additional subscales = 0.368.

The multiple regression model with all nine predictors produced R 2 = 0.368, F (9, 523) = 33.83, p < 0.001 with adjusted R 2 = 0.357. This means that 36.8% of the variance in resiliency scores is because of the PERMA elements. As seen in Table 1 , accomplishment ( β = 0.447, p < 0.01) and negative emotions ( β = −0.171, p < 0.00) are the only elements of PERMA with significant regression weights, showing scores on these elements predict resiliency. However, negative emotions have significant negative weight as compared to with standardized coefficients of −0.171 vs. 0.477.

The multiple regression model of the four confounders between the relationship of PERMA elements and resiliency produced R 2 = 0.036, F (4, 528) = 4.90, p < 0.001 with adjusted R 2 = 0.028. It shows that the spread of the confounders is 3.6% between the relationship of the variables. As seen in Table 2 , only employment status (student, unemployed, and employed) with β = 0.14, p < 0.00 is a significant predictor of resiliency.

Confounders between the relationship of PERMA and Resiliency.

R , Pearson correlation coefficient with resiliency; β , standardized beta; B , unstandardized beta; p , probability value of confounders with p < 0.001.

PERMA as Necessary-But-Not-Sufficient Conditions of Resiliency

The results of NCA on Resiliency show that all five elements of the original Seligman (2011) PERMA are necessary but not sufficient conditions of Resiliency among individuals who are community quarantined as showed by the size of the empty zone in the XY-plots in Figure 1 . This means that to score 35 in the CD-RISC-10, a score of 1 for positive emotions and engagement, a score of 2 for Positive Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment are necessary.

Scatterplots of the original PERMA elements ( x ) as necessary conditions of resiliency ( y ). Note: The dashed lines are ceiling lines. The selected ceiling line technique (CE-FDH) do not allow data points above the ceiling line. The solid line is the ordinary least squares regression line.

Figure 2 contains the scatterplots of the four supplementary subscales of Butler and Kern (2016) PERMA Profiler. Only the xy-plot of Overall Well-being ( x ) and Resiliency ( y ) has a “moderately sized” empty zone in the upper left corner of the plot. This is not surprising considering that Overall Well-being is the composite score of the five PERMA elements and health score. The scatterplots of Health ( x ) and Resiliency ( y ), and Negative Emotions ( x ) and Resiliency ( y ) contain discernibly small empty zones. Lastly, the empty zone is absent in the Loneliness ( x ) – Resiliency ( y ) scatterplot. This assumes that Loneliness is not a necessary condition of Resiliency as the presence and size of an empty zone is a sign that a necessary condition is present ( Dul, 2016 ).

Scatterplots of overall well-being, health, negative emotions, and loneliness ( x ) as necessary conditions of resiliency ( y ). These elements were not in the original Seligman (2011) PERMA model but are supplementary subscales in Butler and Kern (2016) PERMA Profiler. Note: The dashed lines are ceiling lines. The selected ceiling line technique (CE-FDH) does not allow data points above the ceiling line. The solid line is the ordinary least squares regression line.

We summarized the results of the multiple NCA in Table 3 . The observed accuracy of all variables exceeds arbitrary benchmark of Dul (2018) for the desired accuracy of 95%. Dul suggests the use of CR-FDH for interpreting variables with accuracies above 95%. However, since our variables do not follow a normal distribution ( p = 0.00) based on One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, we used the non-parametric CE-FDH ceiling line technique. Necessary-but-not-sufficient relationships between Resiliency and the five original PERMA elements and the auxiliary components are observed. The NCA effect size range between d = 0.09 and 0.12 based on CE-FDH for the original PERMA elements and d = 0.04 to 0.12 on the supplementary elements, excluding Loneliness. According to recommendations, Positive Emotions, Meaning, Accomplishment, and Overall Well-being of Dul (2016) have medium effect sizes on Resiliency. Engagement, Positive Relationships, Negative Emotions, and Health have small effect sizes on Resiliency. The NCA significance test is powerful enough to rule out an effect being the product of randomness ( Dul et al., 2020 ). Lastly, there is no necessary-but-not-sufficient relationship between Loneliness and Resiliency.

Necessary conditions effect size and significance test for PERMA Profiler subscales predicting Connor-Davidson Resiliency Scale-10 (CD-RISC-10) scores.

CE-FDH, ceiling envelopment with free disposal hull; CR-FDH, ceiling regression with free disposal hull. The p value reported was estimated with 10,000 permutations and are treated as significant if <0.05. The threshold for statistical significance is arbitrary but commensurate with the example given by Dul et al. (2020) . Accuracy refers to the percentage of observations under the CR-FDH ceiling line. Skewness p is based on One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test. Skewness of resiliency scores is −0.78.

The ability to identify bottleneck variables (constraints) is a useful feature of NCA, especially for interpreting multivariate necessary conditions ( Dul, 2019b ). Table 4 , which is read horizontally, shows for which level of resiliency, which level of PERMA elements is necessary. For a desired value of resiliency, in the first column, it shows the minimum required values of the PERMA elements in the next columns. Levels are expressed in percentage ranges so that 0 is the minimum value, the maximum is 100, and 50 is the point between these two values.

Bottleneck table of PERMA elements as necessary conditions of resiliency based on CE-FDH.

Re, resiliency; P, positive emotions, E, engagement; R, positive relationships; M, meaning; A, accomplishment; OW, overall well-being; H, health; N, negative emotions; L, loneliness; NN, not necessary.

The bottleneck table shows that no minimum value of any PERMA element is necessary to score 30% in Resiliency. This means that at 30% no PERMA element is a bottleneck for resiliency. However, for a resiliency level of 40%, the minimum required level of Positive Emotions is 6.9%, the necessary level of Accomplishment is 3.7, 7.1% for Overall Well-being, and none of the over PERMA elements are necessary. As observed in the bottleneck table, when Resiliency increases from 0 to 100%, more PERMA elements become necessary, and required levels of the PERMA elements become higher. At 90% level of Resiliency, the necessary level of Positive Emotions is 34.5%, Engagement is 18.6%, Positive Relationships is 25.9%, Meaning is 26.7%, Accomplishment is 25.9%, Overall Well-being is 34.2%, Health is 6.7%, and Negative Emotions is 42.9%. No level of Loneliness is necessary for any level of Resiliency. Not achieving any of these minimum levels means that attaining a 90% level in resiliency is impossible. Since each condition is a bottleneck, scoring higher in other elements does not compensate for the deficiency in others.

Wide range community quarantines and social distancing are elements that are increasingly becoming the new normal as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic. Previous research ( Hawryluck et al., 2004 ; Barbisch et al., 2015 ; Brooks et al., 2020 ; Parmet and Sinha, 2020 ) offer invaluable insights into the psychological consequences of restrictions. Moreover, while there has been an interest in the psychological impact of COVID-19 and community quarantine in the Philippines (for example, Nicomedes and Avila, 2020 ; Tee et al., 2020 ), most focus on the negative psychological impact of COVID-19. This raises the question of what protective factors are important in the midst of prolonged community quarantines. To test this properly, we used a combination of the traditional regression model and the novel multivariate necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions analysis to investigate how resiliency is contingent on well-being elements in Filipinos who are community quarantined.

Participants of this study were predominantly female, around the age of 23 and who are employed. While, we specifically targeted individuals between the ages of 18–40, most of our sample are emergent adults (mean age = 25, median, and mode ages = 23). The disproportional representation of young adult females can be attributed to several factors. First, previous studies ( Smith, 2008 ; Yetter and Capaccioli, 2010 ; Slauson-Blevins and Johnson, 2016 ) have reported that young adult females take part in online surveys at a higher frequency compared with their male counterparts. There are more female Facebook users than males ( Lee et al., 2016 ), which is significant because we invited potential participants through Facebook. Lastly, the Philippines has a young population. The median age in the Philippines is 25.7 ( United Nations Statistics Division, 2019 ; Plecher, 2020 ). Taken together, it can be assumed that the sociodemographic characteristics of our study are similar to the Filipino Facebook population.

Based on the CD-RISC-10 quartiles for community sample provided by Campbell-Sills et al. (2009) , the mean resilience score (24.83) of the current sample belongs to the lowest 25%. This implies that the participants of the current study have lower resiliency scores than the general population. This result ties well with the notion that resilience is stress-context specific ( Jex et al., 2013 ; Wood and Bhatnagar, 2015 ; Hayman et al., 2017 ) and that the nature of the sample influences resiliency scores ( Connor and Davidson, 2003 ). Specifically, people with psychiatric problems and those who are experiencing significant stress score lower than the general population ( Li et al., 2012 ; Ye et al., 2017 ). In the context of COVID-19, Nicomedes and Avila (2020) found that Filipinos in community quarantine experience significant stress and scored high on both health anxiety and panic.

While resiliency and well-being have become commonplace terms and construct central in positive psychology ( Jeste et al., 2015 ), they are often studied using correlational methods ( Schultze-Lutter et al., 2016 ), and traditional approaches via the sufficiency paradigm. In line with previous studies ( Souri and Hasanirad, 2011 ; Khawaja et al., 2017 ; van Agteren et al., 2018 ), we found that all elements of well-being are positively correlated with resiliency. Although the multiple regression test shows that among the original PERMA elements, only accomplishment is a significant predictor of resilience. This means that the subjective sense of competence, having a structure each day, i.e., identifying, setting, and achieving daily goals enable resiliency in individuals subjected to quarantine. We also observed that negative emotions significantly, although negatively predict resilience. This suggests the significant predicting function of individuals’ tendency to experience anxiety and anger for lower levels of resilience. These findings support the previously reported ( Tugade and Fredrickson, 2004 ; Chen et al., 2018 ) link between negative emotions and low levels of resilience.

In this paper, we identified elements of well-being that are necessary-but-not-sufficient for resiliency to occur in individuals who are community quarantined. Specifically, Positive Emotions, Meaning, and Accomplishment are significant and moderately necessary conditions of Resiliency, as suggested by their medium effect size. This finding suggests that positive feelings like interest, joy, and contentment and pursuing a daily purpose, and regularly experiencing a sense of accomplishment are essential to quarantined individuals’ ability to thrive in their present predicament. Such necessary conditions not only allow individuals to enjoy everyday experiences ( Abiola et al., 2017 ) but also provide a sense that life matter, which replenishes depleted energy from adverse experiences, and are required in the development of resiliency.

Engagement and Positive Relationships have small yet significant effect sizes on Resiliency. This infers that experiencing a state of “flow,” or being absorbed in an activity ( Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi, 2014 ) and feeling loved, supported, and valued by others are also necessary to the quarantined individuals’ capacity to recover quickly from their daily difficulties. This ties well with previous studies ( Eaude, 2009 ; Svence et al., 2015 ; Abiola et al., 2017 ; Gerino et al., 2017 ; Roncaglia, 2017 ; Cobo-Rendón et al., 2020 ), where well-being elements were observed to be related with the occurrence of resiliency in individuals from a different context. Well-being elements allow quarantined individuals to focus their attention on alleviating harm, preventing negative mental health consequences, and finding positive outcomes in the presence of difficulty.

A unique finding, we encountered is that PERMA elements are bottleneck variables of resiliency. This highlights the little-known capacity of well-being to serve as a constraint to attaining higher levels of resiliency in community-quarantined individuals. This novel result shows two things. First, low levels of resiliency (30% and less) do not necessitate even the slightest well-being elements. Second, higher levels of resiliency require certain levels of all the original PERMA elements and physical health. However, health remains a constant, albeit weak, necessary condition. This means that optimum resiliency is only possible when all the five pillars of well-being are taken care of and when one is at least minimally content with their physical health. When comparing our results to those of older studies ( Sanders et al., 2015 ; Svence et al., 2015 ; Abiola et al., 2017 ). It must be pointed out that while the link between well-being and resiliency has been suggested in these studies, none could establish the necessary-but-not-sufficient relationship between the concepts. The present findings underpin the importance of holistic rather than an atomistic approach to mental health as noted by Mario (2012) and contradicts the compensation hypothesis of well-being. NCA revealed that deficiencies in certain areas of well-being may not be addressed by overcompensating in other areas, as all five pillars of well-being are necessary-but-not-sufficient conditions of resiliency.

Our findings show that loneliness is inversely correlated with the subjective perception of health. This basic result is consistent with the research ( Balter et al., 2019 ) showing that loneliness predicts poor immune systems in healthy young adults. This is important since maintaining good health is vital amidst a growing viral pandemic. We observed that loneliness is a significant negative predictor of resiliency and not a necessary condition for any level of resiliency in individuals who are community quarantined. A similar conclusion was reached by Perron et al. (2014) where individuals who feel resilient also experience less loneliness. This further highlights the importance of the elements of well-being as necessary conditions of resiliency, which may lessen the effects of or serve as a buffer against loneliness and other negative psychological consequences of quarantine.

The overall results of our study have theoretical and practical implications. At a theoretical level, our results found clear support to PERMA concept of Seligman (2011) as necessary ingredients of resiliency even for socially isolated individuals such as those placed in ECQ. This goes beyond previous reports wherein PERMA elements were observed as predictors of resiliency, as only NCA can identify a necessary-but-not-sufficient relationship between the said variables. Despite experiencing segregation like lockdowns, the conditions that will allow people to thrive in the face of adversity are the same as when they are not undergoing such a predicament. Therefore, this finding can help us understand how the five elements of well-being constrain the negative psychological consequences of community quarantine by providing a buffer against these harms, reducing their effects, and promoting individual capacity to cope with such unsettling conditions. From this standpoint, we speculate that PERMA should be inversely correlated with negative indicators of mental health and correspondingly with other elements of positive psychological health, as noted by Hu et al. (2015) . At a practical level, this opens an opportunity to develop evidence-based interventions such as telepsychology ( Zhou et al., 2020 ) for quarantined individuals that help clients understand behaviors they need to engage to have resiliency, and target multiple necessary-but-not-sufficient variables jointly, and not just focus on certain elements of well-being. This provides support for eclectic approaches to therapy especially the ones that incorporate positive psychology as Bolier et al. (2013) noted empirical support for the effectiveness of such interventions. Lastly, our findings agree with the call to a more inclusive psychology in the Philippines. This paradigm shift involves incorporating such approaches as critical ( Paredes-Canilao et al., 2015 ) and positive ( Datu et al., 2018 ) psychology to the prevailing traditional pathology-based perspective.

One fundamental limitation of this study is that the use of multiple regression and NCA cannot guarantee causality ( Dul, 2016 ). While our data is consistent with the causal hypothesis, it is not evidence of a causal connection. Therefore, causal necessary-but-not-sufficient relations should not be inferred from our data. Another important caveat in interpreting our results is that we used the Facebook population as compared to the actual geographical population. It is not a perfect representative since Facebook users are usually younger females who have better educational attainment compared to the general population ( Kosinski et al., 2015 ). Resiliency and well-being were measured during the ECQ, a far from normal situation. Therefore, although we took obligatory safety measures to increase the trustworthiness of the findings, we suggest that care be exercised when generalizing our findings into the general population and normal circumstances.

Many questions remain to be answered concerning the well-being of people who are community quarantined and the utility of NCA in psychological research. Further work is needed to identify the negative consequences of prolonged quarantine on individuals, especially those who have preexisting mental health problems and those who experience a disruption in access to their mental health-care providers. Moreover Odacı and Kalkan (2010) reported that internet use, specifically social media ( Maglunog and Dy, 2019 ) exacerbates loneliness and that social media usage is expected to rise during the ECQ. Another important question, therefore, is how does the ongoing quarantine affects rates and levels of loneliness. Finally, while necessary conditions are traditionally studied using regression analysis in psychological research, NCA proved to be a more useful tool in understanding necessary-but-not-sufficient relationships because of its ability to understand bottleneck variables. We, therefore, recommend the use of NCA in both classical and novel psychological research problems.

Resiliency grants us the capacity to flourish in the face of difficulty. For resiliency to result, the pillars of well-being are essential. Our research reveals, however, that well-being elements could be enablers or constraints. Accomplishment, for example, could predict resiliency. All pillars are necessary to attain it. Compensating in certain aspects cannot address the deficiency in others. Herein lies the importance and significance of holistic well-being. Those who can attain this are better equipped to thrive in the ECQ, a situation that affects the lives of so many Filipinos.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Manila Tytana Colleges Research Ethics Committee. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

DC wrote the introduction, results, and discussion and conducted the necessary condition analysis. LB wrote the methods, contributed in the results and discussion, and conducted the correlation analysis, regression analysis, and reliability check of the scales. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.558930/full#supplementary-material

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Sákit Pighati and Pag-asa: A Pastoral Reflection on Suffering During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Philippines

Affiliation.

• 1 Theology and Religious Education Department, De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, Manila, Philippines. [email protected].
• PMID: 33772688
• PMCID: PMC8000686
• DOI: 10.1007/s10943-021-01234-5

This article explores the concept of suffering as experienced by Filipinos during the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws inspiration from their narratives about how they faced, managed, and struggled during this tragic event. Their experiences were interpreted and analyzed concerning Filipino culture and tradition using a modified form of thematic analysis. Findings revealed three contextualized themes: sákit (pain), pighati (grief), and pag-asa (hope). These themes are then discussed in the light of John Paul II's Salvifici Doloris. A meaningful pastoral reflection on the basic realities of suffering is formulated to clarify our understanding of such a crisis.

Keywords: COVID-19; Filipino; Hope; Redemption; Suffering.

• Philippines

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Workers’ suffering, strength bared in pandemic writings

COVID CHRONICLES In the e-book project of the Institute for Occupational Health and Safety Development, ordinary wage earners have their turns as essayists, poets, fictionists and witnesses to history at a time when pain and coping ought to be chronicled while still at their rawest. The anthology features the works of 67 authors, putting together a mosaic of the Philippine pandemic experience from the labor sector’s point of view. —CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — In the essay “Hindi Pa Maaring Lumabas Ang Mga Luha” (No Time Yet for Tears), college professor Angela Pamaos recalls how a student asked to be excused from their online class so he could get a permit to bury his parents’ ashes.

It is perhaps the most heartbreaking story in “Kuwentong COVID/Kuwentong Trabaho,” the electronic book of stories on the lives of Filipino workers in the age of COVID-19 that the workplace safety nonprofit Institute for Occupational Health and Safety Development (Iohsad) launched via Facebook and Zoom on May 26.

The student explained, while Pamaos was checking attendance, that it was the only day he could go to City Hall because the workers were on skeleton crew due to the pandemic: “Iyong abo nila Mama at Papa. Iyong pagpapalibing po … Ngayong araw lang po kasi pwede, dahil may schedule raw po sila … dahil sa COVID.”

Pamaos writes that she had to pull herself together, offer her condolences, and tell the student to take all the time he needed as she held back her tears.

Another teacher, Diane Capulong, writes of how she dealt with postpartum angst in between dozens of webinars in preparation for the distance learning decreed by the Department of Education.

Capulong empathizes with Grade 7 students confused by the concepts of modular learning, and recalls their sadness at being told that they would not receive their graduation diplomas onstage.

Sheila Cerilla describes her difficulty with matching children’s faces with the names of adult strangers whose social media accounts the young ones had borrowed so they could attend online classes.

Cathlea de Guzman writes of her hurt at comments that teachers were not actually working because they had been spared face-to-face classes with their pupils.

Written mostly in Filipino, the ebook also offers stories of office workers, health professionals, and jeepney drivers and other blue-collar toilers beset by the pandemic.

Teo S. Marasigan, columnist of the website Pinoy Weekly, edited the anthology of 67 essays, testimonies, short stories, poems and other forms. Dino Brucelas, graphic designer and instructor at the De La Salle College of St. Benilde, designed the cover.

Ordinary voices

The Iohsad observed that while the stories of prominent people and those with access to social media platforms go viral, those of ordinary workers hardly enjoy the same level of attention. In many instances, workers’ voices are even ignored or twisted.

“It is also important that we hear about the stories of workers in various sectors. They are the ones hit hardest by the pandemic, especially in terms of health, livelihood and human rights,” Iohsad executive director Nadia de Leon said in Filipino in an email interview.

In his introduction, Marasigan quotes a report by the International Labor Organization (ILO) dated Jan. 25, 2021, (www.ilo.org), saying that manpower hours lost to the pandemic in 2020 were equivalent to 225 million jobs worldwide, or more than four times the loss recorded during the 2007-2009 global financial crisis.

Per Marasigan, the ILO described the disruption in the global labor market as “historically unprecedented.” Data from advanced countries show that migrant workers employed there are most affected, with women more adversely affected than men, and the young experiencing more challenges than those older.

Overwhelmed

Expectedly, the world’s health sector is the most overwhelmed among industries, the ILO added.

Marasigan also presents figures from Ibon Foundation. He quotes Ibon executive director Sonny Africa, who noted in a report dated Dec. 30, 2020, that while unemployment in the Philippines was already highest in history before the pandemic, employment in 2020 was the lowest in four years.

In October 2020, Ibon said there were more than 5.8 million unemployed Filipinos and an additional 2 million were disheartened and decided to stop looking for work (“pinanghinaan ng loob”).

Marasigan quotes data from the Department of Labor and Employment that more than 500,000 overseas Filipino workers lost their jobs (“nawalan ng trabaho”) and were repatriated, and more than 600,000 were laid off (“natanggal sa trabaho”) because of the pandemic.

De Leon said the e-book contributors “present not only personal stories of suffering and strength, but [also] working people’s collective experiences and challenges—layoff, anxiety, lack of cash aid and social protection, poor working conditions, labor rights abuses brought about by the government’s inept COVID-19 response, and problems in the country’s economy.”

Tatay Elmer, etc.

Emily Barrey, a union officer in an electronics company based in Laguna, writes about how she was fired for letting four other women get on an all-seats-taken company shuttle.

It was late, Barrey writes, and there was no telling if the women would be safe while waiting for another vehicle, or whether one would arrive at all. Her judgment call was used as an excuse to fire her for violating physical distancing protocols.

PJ Dizon, an agricultural worker in Compostela Valley, narrates how health protocols caused much anxiety among his colleagues, especially after one company ordered a work stoppage when a union officer tested positive for the coronavirus.

It so happened that union and management were in the middle of collective bargaining talks when the stoppage was announced, he writes.

One of the e-book’s highlights is the first-person narration of Tatay Elmer Cordero, at 72 the oldest among the jeepney drivers arrested in Caloocan City in 2020, supposedly for violating physical distancing protocols.

He and the other “Piston 6” drivers were demanding that the government allow them to ply their routes.

Cordero talks about being angry at the government for being inconsiderate to the poor. He lashes at the decision to detain him along with “common criminals” while he was fighting for his livelihood.

While his wife questioned his insistence on expressing his views against the government, he maintained that it was necessary because authorities had been so unfair, he says.

But not all the stories in the e-book are sad.

Arnel Noval, resident faculty member of Cebu Technological University, writes in “COVID-19 Fake News” of his parents’ haste to repair their roof and cover all household items after learning of a supposed plan for a military chopper to spray pesticide from a height as a disease prevention measure.

Lawyer Dennis Sabado has a short story about a “Cabinet secretary” who likes boys and who uses a five-star hotel suite for sexual trysts. The official, described in such detail as to allude to a real person, harbors dreams of becoming a senator someday. The Iohsad said it was a work of fiction.

De Leon said ordinary workers must be encouraged to tell their stories because “nobody else can narrate their experiences better than themselves.”

“We realize that we cannot simply keep these stories in our laptop files, or make these part of social media posts which will be buried into oblivion by other posts. These stories need to be released to the public in a way that they can be retained and returned to, in a way that readers can savor every word and message,” she said.

Aid for moving forward

The Iohsad also noted that in consultations with workers, sharing their stories—whether oral or written—proved helpful.

“If we allow them the space and opportunity to say what they are going through, we hope that in some way this would also help them cope and move forward,” De Leon said.

The Iohsad said the book may be downloaded for free starting on May 31.

“We compiled the stories to help readers understand what workers are really going through. Also, we hope that by presenting these stories, people would be more supportive of their demands for adequate wages, protection, ‘ayuda’ and better working environments,” De Leon said, adding:

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“We hope that by doing this, we help empower workers.”

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Pandemic can’t stop bayanihan: How Filipinos took action on urgent issues in 2020

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Background photos from Filo Blinks PH, Bikers United Marshalls, Darren Langit/Rappler, Angie de Silva/RAPPLER

From leading relief initiatives following the Taal Volcano eruption to storming the streets to protest the anti-terror law, Filipinos showed how their bayanihan spirit remains intact even as they faced their own personal challenges.

A Filipino trait defined as working together towards a shared cause, the bayanihan spirit was on full display in the country in 2020, when it was needed most.

As the pandemic forced people to stay at home, many turned to social media to find ways to help, crowdsource information, hold government accountable, and mobilize online communities to take action. Others staged campaigns nationwide to make their voices heard and also to aid fellow Filipinos.

Here are some of the instances when Filipinos showcased the power of a community working together in 2020.

Responding to disasters

On the second week of 2020, Taal Volcano erupted , marking the first of several disasters witnessed by the country this year. Many families were displaced and also lost their livelihood.

This triggered an outswelling of support and relief from various groups who led donation drives , organized feeding initiatives for displaced families, conducted psychosocial debriefing for traumatized victims, and led volunteer efforts for stranded animals.

Civic engagement at work: How communities joined hands in the face of crises during Duterte’s 4th year

Help came from people from all walks of life, including street vendors in Sto Tomas, Batangas, who gave up a day of their income to feed evacuees at Polytechnic University of the Philippines. Others assisted using social media and digital platforms to organize information. They created a basic map and web application to show locations of active evacuation centers to help donors see where to bring relief, among others.

This outpouring of bayanihan efforts from Filipinos was not only seen in the aftermath of the Taal Volcano eruption but also in subsequent disasters, particularly when the Philippines faced the wrath of 5 tropical cyclones in a span of just 3 weeks from late October to November.

Parts of the country were still reeling from Super Typhoon Rolly, when When Typhoon Ulysses struck the Philippines in November. At the height of Ulysses, several Filipinos posted desperate calls for rescue and relief on social media as flood waters rose as high as the second floor of houses in parts of Marikina and Rizal.

Targeting to organize these calls for help for quicker response, Rappler’s civic engagement arm MovePH called for online volunteers to help scour and verify these pleas on social media. With at least 1,000 volunteers responding to the call, MovePH amplified verified reports on its social media platforms and brought them to the attention of the Office of Civil Defense, and Red Cross Philippines, among others.

Two days after calling for volunteers, MovePH, with its network, was able to monitor more than 1,600 reports for rescue and relief from Marikina, Rizal, Bulacan, Cagayan, and other parts of Luzon.

Other Filipinos were also quick to come together online and consolidate relief efforts, following the successive disasters. With the outpouring of initiatives, several youth organizations banded together, also through social media. to consolidate rescue efforts, load requests, and relief drives for hard-hit communities.

Filipino bayanihan spirit brings relief, attention to Typhoon Ulysses victims

The aftermath of Typhoon Ulysses showed the gaps in the government’s disaster response especially as local governments appealed for rescue boats , and photos of submerged houses went viral on social media. This sparked online discussions on the need for better, coordinated disaster response from the national government.

Trudging through the pandemic

When President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration lagged behind in cushioning the blow of the pandemic on the economy and aresting the spike in coronavirus cases, citizens worked together and looked for solutions. These included relief drives for those in need and online campaigns calling for mass testing and setting up temporary bike lanes.

Though well-intentioned, these initiatives were sometimes struck down by the very government whose efforts the groups were trying to augment.

Filipinos’ bayanihan fills in gaps of Duterte government’s pandemic response

At the onset of the community quarantines in the Philippines, for instance, groups turned to social media to gather donations for vulnerable communities’ needs and frontliners’ personal protective equipment (PPE). The groups responded to the shortage of PPE and the struggles of affected sectors in Cagayan de Oro City , Leyte , and Batangas , among areas.

Restaurants , bakeries, and even retail stores donated food, relief packs, and health kits to frontliners and affected families. 

Seeing this, the Department of Social Welfare and Development in April initially urged those leading donation drives to get a permit and pay fees prior to launching their efforts. The department withdrew the reminder after a massive backlash and said it will review the guidelines on public solicitation and make the process “more responsive to the emergency situation.”

There were also those who used digital platforms to lead free ride-sharing initiatives using hashtags #pickupCOVID19PH and #INeedARide after the suspension of public transport made it difficult for health workers, hospital staff, and employees to go to work.

Initially starting out as a Facebook group for people to share tips on running errands during the pandemic, Quarantine Tribute Tips quickly grew into a thriving community of action. Throughout the pandemic, it had used its strong following to gather donations and bring relief to marginalized groups such as jeepney drivers, after coming across their viral stories online.

Various organizations and individuals also sought to help in pandemic response by volunteering their skills to crowdsource reports online, organize information and data, and make innovative programs. Information hub Help from Home , for instance, sought to compile initiatives helping frontliners and communities in one platform.

To help people be more informed about the Philippines’ budget allocation and spending for pandemic response, a group of volunteers took the initiative to collate and visualize government data through the Citizens’ Budget Tracker website.

Inspired by their idols, K-pop fans in the Philippines have also used their huge fan following to help disaster victims as well as those affected by the pandemic.

K-pop fans band together to help Filipinos weather pandemic, typhoons

Students speak up

Throughout the pandemic, young Filipinos have brought to light sexual harassment in schools, called out red-tagging officials, and the flaws in the country’s shift to distance learning.

Student governments of 4 major universities in Metro Manila even submitted to the Commission on Higher Education in March a petition calling for the suspension of online classes nationwide after several student groups aired their concerns about transitioning to e-learning in the middle of an pandemic.

Forced to keep up despite their circumstances, many students were left to fend for themselves and ask for donations under online campaign #PisoParaSaLaptop. In a bid to help these students, MovePH took on the campaign in August and helped promote the stories of students in need using its wide-reaching platforms.

With the help of generous donors and our partners, MovePH raised at least P1,074,502.19 and supported more than 70 students by October 1. Although affected by the flaws in distance learning as well, several students have also sought to help each other through internet and radio initiatives they’ve led themselves.

Going beyond these donation drives, students across the country came together to demand a national academic break in the wake of several disasters that wrecked people’s homes and hampered their access to internet connection and electricity.

Students did not only mobilize for matters involving distance learning in 2020. Taking off from the viral hashtag #HijaAko where netizens called out victim blaming, students coined hashtags for their respective schools to expose sexual misconduct they experienced in their campus and demand safer learning environments from their administration. 

The online campaigns have pushed school administrations to act on sexual harassment in schools and draft policies to further protect students.

Defending democracy: How young Filipino activists fought back in 2020

Being outspoken, however, has made student activists especially prone to red-tagging . 

Online campaigns

The enactment of the anti-teror law heightened concerns over the dangers of red-tagging. Students were at the helm of the protest movement against the law, which many fear will clamp down on Filipinos’ basic rights.

Seeking to fight the controversial measure, many led online campaigns such as a Change.org petition calling to #JunkTerrorBill that has so far collected more than 940,000 signatures. Others also showed their opposition through an email protest to senators, Department of Justice officials, and Malacañang officials. These efforts are on top of rallies held nationwide .

Despite the people’s clamor, lawmakers passed the anti-terror bill in July.

When lawmakers kept dragging their feet on renewing ABS-CBN’s franchise, Filipinos sought ways to keep the embattled media network on air. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) even held weekly Friday protests and submitted a 200,000-signatory petition to the Senate and House of Representatives in February to call on the government to renew ABS-CBN’s franchise. Celebrities and online personalities have voiced their thoughts on the matter.

Lawmakers’ delay in tackling the franchise renewal led to ABS-CBN shutting down radio and television operations on May 5, following a cease and desist order from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). The media network’s congressional franchise had expired the day before.

Days after ABS-CBN was forced to go off air for the first time since Martial Law, several campus publications and organizations worked together in launching a Change.org petition to bring back ABS-CBN.

MovePH, meanwhile, led an online campaign encouraging Filipinos to tag their representatives and use the hashtag #CourageON . Across social media, many Filipinos jumped on the trend to urge lawmakers to tackle the matter and bring ABS-CBN back on the air.

While some representatives took note of the request, an overwhelming majority of the House committee on legislative franchises rejected the bills seeking to grant ABS-CBN a fresh franchise in July.

These are just some of the many moments where Filipinos tapped into their bayanihan spirit to make real change in communities. Throughout 2020, many used social media and hashtags to bring attention to and start smart discussions on national issues such as #FreePride20 and #ReleaseCebu7 . Another is #Halalan2022 which Filipinos used to encourage people to register for the 2022 elections.

Filipinos have long shown that they are capable of innovative solutions and aiding the marginalized, especially in the face of crises. While commendable, it also bears noting how many have had to rely on their fellow citizens to address their own needs. 

The bayanihan exemplified by Filipinos to help fill in big gaps in the government’s response to the pandemic and disasters shows that more can be done in making these solutions sustainable and for government to learn from, and listen to, its own people. – Rappler.com

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Home > History Community Special Collections > Remembering COVID-19 Community Archive > Community Reflections > 21

Community Reflections

My life experience during the covid-19 pandemic.

Melissa Blanco Follow

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Class Assignment

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Affiliation with sacred heart university.

Undergraduate, Class of 2024

My content explains what my life was like during the last seven months of the Covid-19 pandemic and how it affected my life both positively and negatively. It also explains what it was like when I graduated from High School and how I want the future generations to remember the Class of 2020.

Class assignment, Western Civilization (Dr. Marino).

Recommended Citation

Blanco, Melissa, "My Life Experience During the Covid-19 Pandemic" (2020). Community Reflections . 21. https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/covid19-reflections/21

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Essay on COVID-19 Pandemic

As a result of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak, daily life has been negatively affected, impacting the worldwide economy. Thousands of individuals have been sickened or died as a result of the outbreak of this disease. When you have the flu or a viral infection, the most common symptoms include fever, cold, coughing up bone fragments, and difficulty breathing, which may progress to pneumonia. It’s important to take major steps like keeping a strict cleaning routine, keeping social distance, and wearing masks, among other things. This virus’s geographic spread is accelerating (Daniel Pg 93). Governments restricted public meetings during the start of the pandemic to prevent the disease from spreading and breaking the exponential distribution curve. In order to avoid the damage caused by this extremely contagious disease, several countries quarantined their citizens. However, this scenario had drastically altered with the discovery of the vaccinations. The research aims to investigate the effect of the Covid-19 epidemic and its impact on the population’s well-being.

There is growing interest in the relationship between social determinants of health and health outcomes. Still, many health care providers and academics have been hesitant to recognize racism as a contributing factor to racial health disparities. Only a few research have examined the health effects of institutional racism, with the majority focusing on interpersonal racial and ethnic prejudice Ciotti et al., Pg 370. The latter comprises historically and culturally connected institutions that are interconnected. Prejudice is being practiced in a variety of contexts as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. In some ways, the outbreak has exposed pre-existing bias and inequity.

Thousands of businesses are in danger of failure. Around 2.3 billion of the world’s 3.3 billion employees are out of work. These workers are especially susceptible since they lack access to social security and adequate health care, and they’ve also given up ownership of productive assets, which makes them highly vulnerable. Many individuals lose their employment as a result of lockdowns, leaving them unable to support their families. People strapped for cash are often forced to reduce their caloric intake while also eating less nutritiously (Fraser et al, Pg 3). The epidemic has had an impact on the whole food chain, revealing vulnerabilities that were previously hidden. Border closures, trade restrictions, and confinement measures have limited farmer access to markets, while agricultural workers have not gathered crops. As a result, the local and global food supply chain has been disrupted, and people now have less access to healthy foods. As a consequence of the epidemic, many individuals have lost their employment, and millions more are now in danger. When breadwinners lose their jobs, become sick, or die, the food and nutrition of millions of people are endangered. Particularly severely hit are the world’s poorest small farmers and indigenous peoples.

Infectious illness outbreaks and epidemics have become worldwide threats due to globalization, urbanization, and environmental change. In developed countries like Europe and North America, surveillance and health systems monitor and manage the spread of infectious illnesses in real-time. Both low- and high-income countries need to improve their public health capacities (Omer et al., Pg 1767). These improvements should be financed using a mix of national and foreign donor money. In order to speed up research and reaction for new illnesses with pandemic potential, a global collaborative effort including governments and commercial companies has been proposed. When working on a vaccine-like COVID-19, cooperation is critical.

The epidemic has had an impact on the whole food chain, revealing vulnerabilities that were previously hidden. Border closures, trade restrictions, and confinement measures have limited farmer access to markets, while agricultural workers have been unable to gather crops. As a result, the local and global food supply chain has been disrupted, and people now have less access to healthy foods (Daniel et al.,Pg 95) . As a consequence of the epidemic, many individuals have lost their employment, and millions more are now in danger. When breadwinners lose their jobs, the food and nutrition of millions of people are endangered. Particularly severely hit are the world’s poorest small farmers and indigenous peoples.

While helping to feed the world’s population, millions of paid and unpaid agricultural laborers suffer from high levels of poverty, hunger, and bad health, as well as a lack of safety and labor safeguards, as well as other kinds of abuse at work. Poor people, who have no recourse to social assistance, must work longer and harder, sometimes in hazardous occupations, endangering their families in the process (Daniel Pg 96). When faced with a lack of income, people may turn to hazardous financial activities, including asset liquidation, predatory lending, or child labor, to make ends meet. Because of the dangers they encounter while traveling, working, and living abroad; migrant agricultural laborers are especially vulnerable. They also have a difficult time taking advantage of government assistance programs.

The pandemic also has a significant impact on education. Although many educational institutions across the globe have already made the switch to online learning, the extent to which technology is utilized to improve the quality of distance or online learning varies. This level is dependent on several variables, including the different parties engaged in the execution of this learning format and the incorporation of technology into educational institutions before the time of school closure caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. For many years, researchers from all around the globe have worked to determine what variables contribute to effective technology integration in the classroom Ciotti et al., Pg 371. The amount of technology usage and the quality of learning when moving from a classroom to a distant or online format are presumed to be influenced by the same set of variables. Findings from previous research, which sought to determine what affects educational systems ability to integrate technology into teaching, suggest understanding how teachers, students, and technology interact positively in order to achieve positive results in the integration of teaching technology (Honey et al., 2000). Teachers’ views on teaching may affect the chances of successfully incorporating technology into the classroom and making it a part of the learning process.

In conclusion, indeed, Covid 19 pandemic have affected the well being of the people in a significant manner. The economy operation across the globe have been destabilized as most of the people have been rendered jobless while the job operation has been stopped. As most of the people have been rendered jobless the living conditions of the people have also been significantly affected. Besides, the education sector has also been affected as most of the learning institutions prefer the use of online learning which is not effective as compared to the traditional method. With the invention of the vaccines, most of the developed countries have been noted to stabilize slowly, while the developing countries have not been able to vaccinate most of its citizens. However, despite the challenge caused by the pandemic, organizations have been able to adapt the new mode of online trading to be promoted.

Ciotti, Marco, et al. “The COVID-19 pandemic.”  Critical reviews in clinical laboratory sciences  57.6 (2020): 365-388.

Daniel, John. “Education and the COVID-19 pandemic.”  Prospects  49.1 (2020): 91-96.

Fraser, Nicholas, et al. “Preprinting the COVID-19 pandemic.”  BioRxiv  (2021): 2020-05.

Omer, Saad B., Preeti Malani, and Carlos Del Rio. “The COVID-19 pandemic in the US: a clinical update.”  Jama  323.18 (2020): 1767-1768.

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Leaving CNN Was How I Found My Voice

By Brooke Baldwin

“I want to punch you in the face.”

Yes, those words actually came out of my mouth. Like, out loud. A couple months ago. I’m slightly embarrassed to admit I was talking to my loving partner, Peter. He had just flown across the country and was set to wake up with me at four-something in the morning so that he could accompany me to my appearance on Good Morning America. I was going back on national TV for the first time since I’d signed off from my CNN show. I would be talking about the debut of my new Netflix show, The Trust . This was a big deal. In many ways, it felt like a rebirth. But that night before, I hadn’t been in a celebratory mood.

I was pissed off. I felt violent. I felt like I was going to explode. I am now in the process of understanding why, and this deep knowing has enabled me to change everything in my life.

I am not an angry person. Or maybe I am. There I go, silencing myself again.

When I signed off from CNN Newsroom on April 16, 2021, I couldn’t tell the whole truth. I wasn’t allowed to—and probably still am not. But I’m now on the other side of a profound life moment, of my unraveling.

This story really begins during my senior year of college, when my mother and I drove up to a strange house about a half hour from where I grew up in Atlanta. I was 21. Outside the house was my father’s silver Porsche. Inside the house was my father, with a woman who was not my mother. I reached for the car door to run into the house, to do or say I don’t know what. With my leg dragging out the passenger door, I screamed at my mother to stop the car and let me out. Instead she sped away, the passenger door slamming shut. Just recently, a friend told me my mom saved me that day: Had I gotten out of that car, I would have spent the rest of my life trying to unsee what I’d seen.

For years I watched my mother keep her mouth shut. I held on to that secret and said nothing about, or to, my father. This would be just the beginning of carrying bigger secrets and allowing myself to be muzzled —or rather, as I’m now learning, muzzling myself.

Ironic (or not) that I chose a career in TV journalism, which saw me wear a microphone to amplify the voiceless for a living. Problem was, I didn’t use my own. I see it all so clearly now: I rarely spoke up for myself.

CNN was always the dream. For 10 years it put me in millions of living rooms, allowing me to cover everything from the White House to school shootings to the pandemic. I became known for giving you the news, straight up, with dignity and compassion. And—after the 10 years I spent climbing the ranks of local news to get to the big leagues—I was good at it.

I was living my dream and saying yes to everything. YES to oil spills. YES to elections. Coal mine disasters. Hurricanes. Escaped inmates. Gun legislation. Yes to everything, yes to everyone.

I never said no. There would have always been someone hungrier and more telegenic if I had.

Behind the scenes, my yes-girl behavior was starting to snowball. CNN moved me from Atlanta to New York, but my producing team stayed behind; we would work long-distance. I could feel my tether to my executive producer begin to fray.

It wasn’t always like this. In fact, those first few years working together were pretty great. We bounced ideas off each other. We got excited about similar news stories. I adored his wife and kids—and he always knew whom I was dating. Our relationship was almost as sibling-like as it was collegial.

But after my move, our working relationship started to take a drastic turn. My producer made me feel as though I couldn’t do heavy-hitting interviews without him. Or, maybe, I allowed him to make it feel like I couldn’t do heavy-hitting interviews without him. The word gaslighting has become so cliché, but that’s what it felt like. Manipulation. Bullying.

Anyone who’s ever tried long-distance in any kind of relationship, romantic or professional, knows it wears on you. My producer was read-in on the news at all times—it was his job. When you work at any cable news network, email comes in fast and furiously. Sometimes that meant I would accidentally miss his emails. And I started to notice that if I didn’t respond to those emails right away, he would go dark.

Even worse, sometimes he would go dark during my live broadcasts. In front of hundreds of thousands of people. There would be days when I’d get on set, clip on my microphone, and slip my earpiece into my right ear. No “hello.” No check-in. Instead, I’d be greeted by someone less seasoned.

With live TV, there should always be a palpable sense of “I’ve got you” —which goes both ways between anchor and executive producer. I had to learn how to rely on myself and others to move through the show without him.

Sometimes he needed to communicate urgently with me—for instance, if he had gotten word there’d be a press conference and wanted me to know I’d need to ad-lib coming out of it. But depending on his mood, he might refuse to actually speak into my ear, instead writing me notes on the teleprompter during commercial breaks.

By Molly Jong-Fast

By Kase Wickman

By Erin Vanderhoof

I got into a bad habit. I never picked up the phone and said something—like really said something. Not to him. And I didn’t report up the chain of command. I was the good girl. Good girls smile, are grateful for our jobs, and keep our mouths shut. We definitely don’t speak up.

Everything changed for me the day in 2015 when Donald Trump came down that escalator. In the years that followed, I was not only pushed out of alignment with what news had become and how I was being told to cover it; I was also changed. I got curious about the legions of women who, as a direct result of that election, finally decided to speak up.

In 2018, I started researching my book, Huddle , about the collective power of women. I spent weekends during one of the most insane news cycles of our lifetime interviewing Black women judges in Texas; a queer chef from San Francisco; military badasses turned congresswomen—athletes, teachers, activists, mothers. Women who knew real marginalization and discrimination. I’m a privileged white woman, and yet that’s when I started to find my voice.

“No, I don’t want to cover that today.”

“No, I’d like to interview her instead of him.”

“No, I will not be spoken to like that.”

Despite my own narrative that I “needed” my producer, I knew I needed to figure it out without him. And I knew that I could.

In November 2019, I finally walked into my boss’s office. I told Jeff Zucker, the former president of CNN, that I wanted my producer off my team. I didn’t want him to be punished—just moved to another anchor to start anew. A male colleague had made a similar request with success. My request? Denied.

Little did I know, this was the beginning of the end for me.

A few weeks later, I got called back into the boss’s office with my then agent, who’d prepared me with something like, “Brooke, your boss is furious at you. What have you done?!” I’d had a lovely relationship with Jeff up until this point. I’d even danced with him at my wedding. Now I found myself standing in his office dumbfounded, but prepared to defend myself and my integrity.

I couldn’t help but wonder: Why was I even sitting there? Why did I suddenly feel like the third wheel with my executive producer and my boss? Had I inadvertently kicked a hornet’s nest? All because I had gone over my producer’s head to the big boss? It didn’t make sense. I wasn’t accusing this guy of any kind of misconduct. Just as I’d told Jeff, our working relationship had run out of track.

Instead of addressing me right away, my boss engaged in the longest five-minute conversation of my life—not with me, but with my agent. The topic: whether Anderson Cooper, another of her clients, was happy with the view out of his new office.

I stood there waiting to hear my fate.

What the fucking fuck.

Textbook power move. I just stood there. Paralyzed. In fear? In shame?

Then Jeff turned to me and threatened, “I could give your show to someone in Washington tomorrow. ” [ Long pause ] “But I won’t…because I believe you’re the best broadcaster on this network.” He told me that I needed my executive producer and that he would not remove him.

Whiplash. Instability. Another classic play. I’d lost. Some months later, the pandemic hit. I got a severe case of COVID early, and my sickness became national news. I was getting alerts about myself. Thousands of viewers reached out to me and showed me so much love. But what they didn’t know was that, in addition to my health, I was fighting for my own self-respect.

To summarize the next year: With very little explanation (read: some excuse about “not enough available control rooms” to produce my show), my boss yanked me off the air for the two months leading up to and including Election Day 2020. When people understandably started asking why I was “taking vacation” during such a crucial time, I responded to a random, buried comment on Instagram: “Not my choice.”

My three little words made news around the globe. So I got slapped again. When I got my show back, Jeff cut it in half. This time I kept my mouth shut. “Be grateful,” Jeff had once told me over lunch a year or two before, while we were in contract negotiations. “Don’t be like Megyn Kelly. Don’t you dare get bored.”

Why didn’t I leave earlier? For one thing, that little girl deep inside of me would have been disappointed. She and I, we lived in small-town West Virginia. We dated the wrong guys. We put off having kids. The hustling. We can’t quit now. We worked too hard for this. This was our dream.

CNN beat me to it. In January 2021, the morning Trump was impeached for a second time, my cell phone rang. It wasn’t my boss —rather, it was my agent.

Jeff wanted me out. No explanation. Just out. From that moment on, after I’d spent 13 years at CNN, Jeff never spoke to me again. Neither did my former executive producer, who ended up getting moved to another show for COVID-protocol reasons and then eventually promoted. (When I emailed them to let them know I’d be publishing this piece, offering each of them a chance to comment on or dispute my recollections, Jeff’s publicist responded by saying that “he wishes you all the best.” My old producer never responded.)

After 10 years: crickets. And the worst part? I had to lie to my team, my friends and family, and my viewers.

My lawyer and publicist worked hard to negotiate my exit, fighting to allow me to announce my own news on my own show. In February, I got to do exactly that. My end date was mutually agreed upon—coincidentally coming less than two weeks after I would be publishing my first book. Eventually, I did an interview with the Ms. magazine podcast during which I called out gender inequality at CNN. Another phone call from my agent. Another “Jeff is going nuclear.” This time he was apparently threatening to yank me off the air. My response: “But he’s already yanking me off the air!” My then agent: “He is threatening to yank you even sooner.” He didn’t.

Through my final days at CNN, I was so allergic to the idea of that man that instead of risking running into him on the way to the bathroom, I contemplated peeing in a Gatorade bottle in my office.

Everything was upside down.

On my last day at the network, after I said my goodbyes, I slipped out the literal side door of the building, and of my dream.

On my way out, the only CNN face I saw was a security guard’s. Masked, hands trembling, Anthony stood there clutching a shoebox. He’d bought me a pair of Air Jordans as a goodbye. I hugged him and wept.

No cheesy plaque. No Champagne. No send-off party.

Just quiet.

Life is unfair. People are shitty. Bosses are bullies. This is not news. In the hierarchy of giving a shit, I didn’t think my story, my thousand little cuts, amounted to much.

It’s taken me nearly three years to remove the blinders, feel the anger, welcome the fear, and recognize that in all my yesses, in all my silence, in all my enabling, the person who betrayed me the most was me.

I wanted to obey. I wanted to please. I wanted to be the good girl. I was afraid they’d let me go—joke’s on me.

It starts in childhood. We want approval—from our parents, then our lovers, then our bosses. I wanted the people who had certain control over me to want me so that I could get what I wanted.

It’s a transaction and it’s a gamble, and the house always wins.

A former colleague of mine in her 20s knew what I was going through at work. She confessed to me years later that she was aghast and afraid: If it could happen to me, how would it not happen to her?

Which brings me back to wanting to punch my man in the face. Why was I so angry?

Because all of the truths were flooding into my mind the night before GMA. The muzzling. The charade. My childhood. My accountability.

I didn’t hit Peter, of course. Instead, he threw his arms around me, showing me how to feel seen and safe—and I wept. I wept for my mother. I wept for the versions of a woman I’d been throughout my life. I I wept for the woman I was finally becoming.

So this is my confession. I’m calling myself out. And it feels powerful.

As for my family? My mother eventually left my father. She has found love with a man, a kind of love she had never known. And I don’t speak to my father, who is remarried. I wish him well.

Part of my own unraveling meant I became a believer in divorce. Including my divorce, so to speak, from CNN. Like my marriage ending, it was painful. I miss being a vessel for information and clarity and news—the good and the bad. I miss my audience. But I’m experiencing a rebirth. As with a forest fire, you can burn out the debris and foster new growth.

And it turns out that once you find your voice, you can’t unfind it. You can still say yes, as long as it’s using that voice.

Yes to hosting a social-experiment show on Netflix.

Yes to becoming a filmmaker, my own storyteller.

Yes to getting divorced.

Yes to starting the fuck over.

Yes to finding new love.

Yes to chopping your hair.

Remove your armor.

Burn the boats.

Unraveling. A funny word. I always took it to mean “coming apart,” but it also can mean “getting to the truth.”

Now I realize it’s both.

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