COVID-19 brings out the Angaras’ finest moment as a family
First, the rock of the family was hit by COVID-19, that deadly virus that has so far infected more than 10,000 Filipinos.
Thankfully, Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara counted himself as among the 1,506 recoveries (as of this writing). But his joy, along with that of wife Tootsy and children Manolo, 15, Ines, 14, and Javier, nine, was short-lived.
After testing negative twice for the virus and released from the hospital on April 6, Sonny got himself tested again on April 29 as part of the protocols for his second plasma donation as a recovered COVID-19 patient.
And the seemingly unthinkable happened: he tested positive for the virus again!
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It was on March 15 that Sonny woke up feeling feverish and experiencing body aches, sore throat and shortness of breath. He immediately isolated himself and took a swab test. Eleven days later came some negative news: he was positive for the coronavirus.
“It felt surreal,” Tootsy confided in an exclusive interview with PeopleAsia magazine’s Alex Vergara. “Sometime in early March, we were still both preoccupied sending help to those who needed it — hospitals, barangays. We were even praying for the victims of COVID, and then all of a sudden it hit our home. In an instant, it was us who needed prayers. It was us who needed help.”
Sonny had to be confined in the hospital eventually. It broke Tootsy’s heart to see her husband’s “sad pair of eyes,” as he stepped out of their home and left for the hospital.
“I had to stay strong for the kids, but I did experience moments of weakness wherein I would break down and cry,” Tootsy recalled. “Not only did I feel helpless, I couldn’t be there and do anything to help him. He had to go through all of this alone.”
It didn’t help that just after news of Sonny’s having COVID came out, Tootsy and her family experienced some discrimination. A neighbor wanted the family out of the village. Certain vendors of food and other essentials refused to deliver them to the Angara house.
Tootsy sought and found refuge in prayer. While Sonny was away, she and her children would pray the rosary twice a day online with other families. And true friends were there for them.
“We also doubled up taking Vitamin C, Zinc, Manuka honey and salabat,” she shared. “I also put onions all over the house. I did pretty much everything I knew to protect the rest of our home.”
“We did a lot of video calls through WhatsApp. I’d watch them do their activities. I’d also look through old photos in my phone and send some to them. In turn, I’d get sweet, colorful letters from them every day,” Sonny, for his part, recounted.
According to their only daughter Ines, the crisis taught her to value every waking moment spent with family.
“Finding out that my dad had tested positive was definitely one of the most difficult times for me, not only during this pandemic, but in my entire life,” she said.
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On April 6, Sonny was finally released from the hospital, just in time for his youngest son Javier’s ninth birthday. And on April 17, he was physically reunited with his family.
A joyous Sonny posted a photo of the family together in his Instagram account on April 17: “First time to hug/kiss these guys after over 30+ days, including hospital stay and self-quarantine in the den. #happyday #endofquarantine.”
When he was cleared to do so mid-April, Sonny donated blood plasma to a health worker badly stricken by COVID-19 in the same hospital where he was previously confined.
“I wish I could pay it forward every day, but protocol dictates you could donate only every two weeks,” he said. He felt it was the least he could do to both pay it back and pay it forward for his second lease on life.
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On May 2, about a month after he was released from the hospital, Sonny announced that the test conducted prior to his second plasma donation yielded a different result.
“It has been close to one month since I recovered from COVID-19. But while preparing to donate my blood plasma for a second time, my doctors, after the results of the initial antibody test taken before donating, had me take another swab test, which registered positive. My wife Tootsy has tested negative, which could be proof of what my doctors are positing that I am probably no longer infectious and that this latest positive result is probably picking up remnants of the virus. Nothing is 100-percent sure at this point so it is best to be prudent and cautious and thus it is best that I not attend Senate sessions in person for the risk posed to others. And we will follow the usual quarantine procedures for myself and members of my household as a precaution,” Sonny said in a statement.
He told me, however, that he was not feeling any symptoms of what he underwent last March, he had a good appetite and was in fact already exercising. “I am super okay,” he told me last Tuesday. “I suspect the doctors are right in their theory about this being a remnant of the original virus rather than a reinfection.”
No one else in their household, the children or the household staff, tested positive, either.
And this time, it was a kinder, more informed world that received news of Sonny’s second self-quarantine.
None of their neighbors asked for their eviction this time, Tootsy says gratefully, adding, that the neighbor who first did has subsequently apologized.
“What a roller-coaster ride, ‘no?” is how Tootsy described their journey to me. Add to that the closure of ABS-CBN, which Tootsy has been a part of for 24 years now.
How is she surviving this roller-coaster ride? “Love and faith,” Tootsy told me. “Love for my family, prayers and words of comfort from friends. And the faith that God will never leave us in the midst of the storm.”
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