The sun is setting over the beach in
Boracay.
Unbothered.
Generous with color.
People are still walking barefoot on the sand.
The sea looks the same as it did yesterday.
My phone vibrates.
The news announces the first confirmed cases in
Philippines.
Talk of lockdowns follows almost immediately.
Restrictions.
Borders.
Movement.
Paradise suddenly feels provisional.
I have seen this virus on international news.
In other countries.
In crowded hospitals.
In numbers that rose too quickly to feel abstract.
Lethal, they said.
Unforgiving.
Relentless.
Back then, it felt distant.
Contained by geography.
Something happening elsewhere.
Now it is here.
And the distance collapses.
I start thinking about ordinary things.
Dental visits.
Derma sessions.
Appointments that were routine just days ago,
now floating, undefined.
Small concerns, maybe.
But they were signs of normal life.
Of continuity.
Of a future we assumed would arrive.
Then the heavier questions come.
Will my wife and I be okay?
Will our parents be okay?
Will I still have a job?
Not eventually.
Soon.
I look around and realize
how quickly certainty drains out of a place.
How a destination
can turn into a waiting room.
We count what we have.
A few face masks left.
Enough for now, I think.
I wonder if we will still be allowed to go home.
Or if we will be locked down here,
suspended between sunset and uncertainty.
The sky turns orange.
Then purple.
It is beautiful
in a way that almost feels inappropriate.
Fear and beauty
sit side by side.
Neither cancels the other out.
So I pray.
For safe passage home.
For our families.
For everyone.
For the grace to stay steady
when nothing else is.
The sun disappears.
Night settles in.
And as the world begins to close
in ways we do not yet understand,
I hold on to the only thing
that still feels solid.
Faith.
Faith that this will not define us.
Faith that fear will not have the last word.
Faith that we will learn, adapt,
and care for one another.
So let’s be kinder.
More patient.
More careful.
More prayerful.
Let’s look out for our families.
Our neighbors.
Our frontliners.
Our communities.
This will be hard.
But it will not break us.
Together, we shall overcome.