MANILA, Philippines — Actor Robin Padilla on Saturday urged his fellow Filipinos to spare Chinese nationals from bullying amid the global scare triggered by the outbreak of the novel coronavirus acute respiratory disease (2019 nCov ARD).
As of Saturday, 259 people in China have reportedly died due to the new virus, while 11,800 people have been infected.
Wuhan, the capital city of China’s Hubei province, is considered the ground zero of the virus’ outbreak.
“Adding insult to injury will not help the fight against the virus,” Padilla said in his Instagram post.
“Nakadapa na sa putik ang mga Tsino wag na nating ingudngod pa ang mukha (The Chinese are already in the mud, we shouldn’t press their faces deeper),” the action star added. “We should be practicing all our religious values and rituals now.”
While he said that the world agrees that people should protect themselves first, that doesn’t mean that one race should be “crucified.”
“Humanity and Spirituality is far greater than politics and hate we cannot attack one culture and pretend we do not have that blood in our veins,” he said. “Geographically we are Asians than Westerners we should be loving our neighbors and praying for their sick as testaments of our faith and love for God.”
Similarly, comedienne Pokwang shared the same sentiment and apologized to Chinese nationals for the supposed racism being displayed by Filipinos against them.