“You can’t win every battle. Sometimes victory comes in form of bowing out gracefully.” – Toni Payne

It was a weeklong circus that ended with the installation of Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco as the new Speaker of the House, replacing Alan Peter Cayetano.

A public post of Jonathan Espinosa went viral after it was shared in the news line-up of Digicast Negros over the weekend. He is an LSI who reportedly tested negative and was sent home. That homecoming was short lived though, after he was informed belatedly that he was after all positive and had to return to the quarantine facility.

Power begets power.

After so much hullabaloo coupled with the threat of sanction, the city government appears to be backtracking on its implementation of the Bacolod City Tracking System (BaCTrac) and now, instead of mandatory, it will be voluntary.

Thousands were glued to the live virtual funeral mass of Gov. Freddie Marañon. Some viewed it from Hong Kong, Japan and the United States but most were locals who would have loved to bring him to his final resting place if not for the pandemic.

We woke up to sad news yesterday that Governor Freddie Marañon had passed on to the next life, just before midnight Thursday.

I told myself days ago to endure an hour of ranting from the nation’s leader in order to hear the announcement of what our new community quarantine status will be. However, with an earlier announcement that the city government appealed to downgrade us to GCQ, it was not worth staying up late.

Thousands went to the government center last Saturday, hoping to get lucky and avail financial assistance from the Department of Social Services and Development (DSSD).

In five days, maybe even less, we will know whether our quarantine status will be downgraded or not. Though I have grown tired of listening to the musings of a manic leader, I will make an effort come Monday to listen to the announcement of the NIATF.