Nardo Samson posing with granddaughter Kiara Bautista, May 2017.
Eighty-year-old Nardo Samson, a retired policeman, lay dying in the back of a makeshift ambulance. It was nearly Easter. A surge in coronavirus cases triggered yet another lockdown in the capital Manila, where a confusing patchwork of quarantines to contain the virus persists.
His family's race to save him is part of a larger tableau of the pandemic in the Philippines. Relatives desperate to save a critically ill loved one are left to fend for themselves as recriminations rise against the government's handling of the public health crisis, which has resulted in over one million cases of COVID-19.