Speaker Allan Peter Cayetano recently drew flak during a special session of Congress where he and Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea posed for a photo, holding a Manila paper signage that says: “Together with doctors and frontliners, we went to work for you, so please stay home for us.”
The message wasn’t well-received and quickly became a hot topic on social media.
People called out Cayetano for “comparing themselves to frontliners” who–since day one–have been risking their lives to save and protect people amid the rising numbers of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country. Some expressed that public officials (who are doing the bare minimum by clocking in for attendance) are not even at par with the doctors, nurses, health workers, and other restless frontliners who are doing everything they can despite having inadequate support from the government.
In a Facebook live session, Cayetano clarified that they were not comparing themselves to frontliners and only intended to send a message to the public.
“If you ask me to hold up a sign again, and even if the sign curses at me but it gets people to read and gets people to stay home, I will do it again and again and again,” Cayetano said.
Cayetano: “If you ask me to hold up a sign again, and even if the sign curses at me but it gets people to read and gets people to stay home, I will do it again and again and again.” | @NAMercadoINQ https://t.co/kL3VkM49TV
— Inquirer (@inquirerdotnet) March 24, 2020
Cayetano’s “we went to work for you, so please stay home for us” sign quickly became a meme template and here are some of the things that should’ve been on that Manila paper instead:
1. A call-to-action from our queen and president, Nadine Lustre, to every Filipino who is still mum and blinded by this administration’s atrocities:
2. This petition for Angel Locsin (or for Star Cinema) to remake Four Sisters and a Wedding so she can recreate that iconic scene from one of the most-referenced Filipino movie these days.
Drag her, Darna!
3. This will be all of us as we watch Juan Ponce Enrile survive another pandemic.
COVID-19 will just be an added item to the long list of things that the 96-year-old have managed to survive.
4. Desperate times call for desperate measures! Maybe if your mayor sees this sign, he/she will finally come around and start doing the job he/she got elected for.
See some of the most hilarious #FindingMayor entries here.
5. One of our key takeaways from the president’s press conferences while he was addressing the COVID-19 outbreak:
Let’s kill this love? No, let’s kill this beerus first!
6. Every privileged individual talking about how the novel coronavirus outbreak is a “lesson” to humanity be like:
7. There are two kinds of insensitive rich people these days: those who are staying comfortably inside their homes, watching on their smart-TVs and calling Filipino workers “motherf*****s” for risking their lives outside because they simply have no choice, and those who are spreading a different kind of virus called “toxic positivity”.
Tagging everyone who said “Thank you, Coronavirus”.
8. This is a reminder that the 50 million pesos we spent for the SEA Games cauldron could’ve been used to provide medical supplies that hospitals and healthcare workers need, test kits, and personal protective equipment (PPE) for our frontliners.
*Kourtney Kardashian voice* Allan, there’s people that are dying.
9. And finally, this sign that says what the public really wants and what the government should prioritize:
Without implementing nationwide mass testing, allocating budget and mobilizing resources to expand the country’s coronavirus response efforts, this outbreak is going to claim more victims every day and will be longer than we expected. Test kits should be prioritized for Persons Under Investigation and Persons Under Monitoring and not VIPs who are cutting the line just because they have the power to do so.
/GAL/JBB