HEALING THE PRESENT
On May 27, 1906, two coast guard cutters arrived at the island paradise of Culion, Palawan. With them were 370 passengers, fetched from various locations in the Philippine Islands, some with visible lesions on their skins, while some were with notable deformities in their limbs and extremities. These passengers, determined to be suffering from Hansen’s disease, commonly known as leprosy, were ordered to segregate to this island colony by the Taft Commision, the American colonial government at the time. A colony within a colony, Culion received passengers from these so-called ‘leper collection trips’ until its decline in the 1950s.
More than a hundred years later, Filipinos find themselves in the same predicament. SARS-COV-2 has enforced the country to establish modern ‘colonies’ for the infected. Cities and provinces continue to be dotted with quarantine centers made up of hotels, motels, repurposed multi-purpose halls and basketball courts—basically a makeshift architecture of isolation made of plastics and fabric.
The country through sheer perseverance had become familiar with the nuances of the disease a
