Like many mothers on the frontline, Joyce Yasona spent Mother’s Day alone.
She couldn’t spend it with her family. Her husband was abroad, and their two kids were with their grandmother one town away.
“I had to send them to her when it became clear to me that it’s the only way I could truly protect them. With what I’m doing — managing and running our rolling stores in Metro Manila — it’s too risky to be close to them.”
So on Mother’s Day, she simply celebrated the occasion with the usual Zoom session with her family.
“Small joys like that are most precious to me in these tough times,” she says. “But you can just imagine my frustration: I want to hug all of them, but can’t.”
Waking up at 4:00 am, Joyce drives from Cabuyao, Laguna to be in Metro Manila to start her first rolling store activity, which can be anywhere in Parañaque or Taguig or Pasig.
The schedule isn’t too different from pre-pandemic times, but now there’s more traveling involved.
“We try to reach our customers where they are, since the lockdown is really restricting their movement,” she says. “We need to make food available to them.”
There can be more than three drops or visits per day. That’s why when she’s finally able to sleep around midnight, she is simply exhausted.
But, as sure as the sun rises, so does Joyce.
“My family inspires me to get up and work amid the current circumstances. We are making all these sacrifices in the hope that one day our kids will finish their studies and be living comfortable lives.”
“Secondly my duty to serve others boosts my determination,” she adds. “We may not be as exposed as medical frontliners, but we are also essentially frontliners serving people another basic need: food.”
Joyce is thankful that Bounty keeps her and her colleagues in mind throughout this crisis.
“The appreciation pay we receive, the safety precautions, the encouraging words — all these help us. But I’m also profoundly inspired by how my colleagues have been working doubly hard these days. We are all doing this to ensure that after this crisis, we will still have a company to work for.”
“Isa sa mga napatunayan ko sa krisis na ito na sa panahon ngayon, walang mataas walang mababa, walang mahirap o mayaman, lahat pantay-pantay at nagkakaisa para sa isang layunin.”
To you, Joyce, and the rest of Bounty’s frontline heroes — salamat sa inyong Puso Para Sa Pilipinas!