It’s been a year since the lockdown. Some people have resumed their normal lives and are now going back to the office, seeing family members and friends and even dining out. Others, particularly the elderly and those with preexisting conditions, are opting to stay home.
Whatever you’re choosing to do right now, all our memories about March 2020 are the same—we stayed home and waited, hoping that Covid-19 would be over soon. Everyone will remember how difficult it was to get supplies then. A bottle of rubbing alcohol was so precious that my brother asked his driver from Alabang to go to Fairview to get a small one from our house.
Before everyone learned how to bake, bread was also very precious. I remember that my husband would wake up really early just to get bread from 7-Eleven. Everything—from cooking oil to cheese—was precious and hard to come by. Having lived through Martial Law, this was not an alien concept to me.
But for someone like my daughter, it was a traumatic time. Their generation had never experienced anything remotely like this. This was something new.
Our household had, by the end of March, devised ways of getting supplies as we didn’t really want to go out. We discovered that you could call the Watsons branch nearest you and order vitamins, OTC medications, toiletries and other stuff. We got groceries via Grab Express and an enterprising person in the neighborhood who had a motorcycle and was willing line up for hours.
We also scoured Instagram for shops selling food and groceries. At this time, many restaurants didn’t even start doing takeout and deliveries yet. Even our old reliables McDonald’s and Jollibee didn’t have everything in their menu. Sometimes, they’d run out of burgers by the afternoon.
Meat and fresh produce were so expensive. I cannot imagine the hardships that most Filipinos went through at this time. I remember that we received food packages, popularly known as “ayuda,” from our local government units.
Ayuda is the Tagalog word for “help.” I’m explaining this because I know some people who apparently thought that it was a newly-invented word. With the number of Covid cases in Metro Manila rising again, there are talks that there will be another lockdown soon. This is what I’m thinking: We are now better prepared if this happens. We know what to do.
I’m happy to hear that foodpanda has introduced pandamart, a quick on-demand delivery service for daily essentials and food products.
Pandamart is a time-saving and convenient way to choose from over 3,000 items that include daily essentials and food products such as snacks, beverages and ice cream with a fast delivery time of about 25 minutes. They have the Weekly Deals wherein products are refreshed weekly.
Pandamart offers the public safety, speed, convenience and effortless delivery.
Health and sanitation practices are observed at all times with contactless delivery as an available option. Experience the convenience of online grocery shopping via pandamart by downloading the foodpanda app for free on Google Play Store or the App Store.
Once you have the app, you can access pandamart via the “Shops” function, which works like other grocery delivery services.