city escape

In a country as heavily rules-based as the one in which we currently reside, there is bound to be a fair amount of box-checking that is only tangentially connected to actual policy objectives. The ongoing pandemic is a prime case in point. Rules abound, and while some of them are quite sensible, plenty of others appear to miss the mark entirely. Restaurants, for example, have adopted strict protocols that typically include forbidding patrons from sitting directly across from each other, even at outdoor tables. Instead, staff will push two tables together and require members of the same party to sit kitty-corner. What this accomplishes is anyone’s guess, but there seems to be no room for any common sense deviation from this established rule — not even, say, for married couples or families and their children.

In-country travel is another area where the rules seem to be skewed toward compliance for the sake of compliance. A couple of weekends ago we took a day trip to go hiking in Rizal, revisiting one of our favorite pre-pandemic activities. To leave Metro Manila we needed health certificates signed by the competent police authorities attesting to our COVID-free status. We obtained said certificates but the process to do so should not have allayed anyone’s concerns about the potential for COVID transmission.

Some municipalities have set up websites through which individuals can self-declare their COVID-free status. No screening, no doctor’s visit. The travel health certificate is issued and emailed to the requesting party within five business days. In our case, we asked our residential management to facilitate communication with the proper authorities. The certificates were issued even faster as a result, but again without any of the steps being taken that might have imbued them with meaning.

Still, we were glad we went to the trouble of checking this box, as we were required to present the certificates at a police checkpoint about fifteen minutes from our destination. No one bothered about the health certificates at the tourism office where we stopped by to hire the required guide, but we sure would’ve been frustrated had we driven all the way out to Rizal and had been forced to turn around so close to our destination — as several vehicles were — for lack of these health certificates.

The hike itself was wonderful. We had already summited several of Rizal’s better known peaks. This time we chose Nagpatong Rock — a prominent limestone rock formation that juts out improbably from the surrounding jungle. We followed our guide on an hour-long hike through dense vegetation, passing along a well-trod path through a bamboo thicket. A few well-placed wooden ladders helped with the final summit push. It didn’t feel like a particularly strenuous hike in the moment, but we did feel the steep up-and-down parts in our knees the next day.

The view from that top was splendid. More importantly, after passing several big groups that had already completed the hike, we had the rock all to ourselves. We spent about as long at the top — munching on snacks, enjoying the view, and breathing in the fresh mountain air — as we had hiking out to Nagpatong. We couldn’t bring the kids with us, of course; requirements for their travel remain more stringent. After several weeks of shuttling between home and office, however, this was a much-needed escape even (or, perhaps, especially) without them.