Engineering care: A designer’s perspective as a COVID-19 backliner

As non-essential personnel in the first weeks of the pandemic, my thoughts were the same as everybody else: “Where the hell do I get a toilet paper?” I didn’t have a lot of selfless and noble ideas back then to fight the virus. I was more concerned about my trips being canceled, and the Black Widow film being rescheduled from May to November. Admittedly, I had brushed off COVID-19’s threat, thinking that I wouldn’t even have anything to contribute, not being in the medical field. Obviously, I was very wrong.

As the weeks went by under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), the number of computer science engineering cases steadily climbed. The government continued to roll out cash assistance programs and national policies to combat the pandemic and its consequent tragedies. But implementation was a different matter altogether.

As lapses in the execution of these policies became evident, the public grew restless. Soon enough, hospitals cried out over their lack of necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), public transport drivers begged for work, and small business owners filed for bankruptcy. Complaints rolled in, creating an online ruckus on crisis mismanagement and the unjust decrees that bare latent interclass tensions within Philippine society.