[Hot Off the Press] Face Shield Nation

New Book Face Shield Nation offers an intimate yet also critical record of the pandemic era  

Any discussion of the pandemic is never easy. It means remembering the loss and the loneliness that came with it. However, there is no moving on without processing the heartbreaks and injustices we experienced individually and collectively as a nation. Published by the Ateneo Press, Gideon Lasco’s Face Shield Nation compiles columns written during the COVID-19 pandemic, offering intimately anecdotal and sharply analytical perspectives on the crisis that shook our country to its very core. 

Through Lasco’s expertise as a physician, medical anthropologist, and columnist, we can get a keen grasp of the nitty-gritty details of the COVID-19 pandemic that may have already been lost to the past otherwise. This contemporaneous account delves deeply into how the pandemic changed every aspect of our lives as we knew it, from our routines to our relationships with ourselves, other humans, and non-humans. Informed by his knowledge of medicine and the social sciences, Lasco became a meticulous witness to everyday life under lockdown and a staunch critic of our government’s responses to the global crisis. In naming the book, “Face Shield Nation,” the author focuses on the country’s unique experience of the pandemic and the materiality and corporeality of the country’s pandemic policies. Still, despite the tragedies that occurred daily, his essays never lost their sense of hope and fighting spirit: “Resilience may allow us to survive, but ultimately, it is resistance that will allow our people to reach their potential—and our nation to realize its promise.”

Ma. Mercedes G. Planta, author of Traditional Medicine in the Colonial Philippines, Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century, praises the author’s approach to writing about this era of our history: “Lasco’s account uncovers details often overlooked in official records or secondary sources. His direct insights, thoughts, feelings, and experiences not only humanize COVID-19 but also preserve memory, ensuring individual stories and experiences are not lost to time. These aspects constitute his invaluable contribution for enriching our understanding of history and serve as a foundation for dialogue with the future—a vital resource for future generations seeking to comprehend the complexities of the twenty-first century.”

Face Shield Nation is addressed to present and future generations. To honor those who lost their lives, those who sacrificed their lives, and ourselves for surviving those times, we must never forget and we must never shy away from facing the past, no matter how difficult it may be. We must remember. For if not us, who will? 

About the Author

Gideon Lasco is a physician, medical anthropologist, and writer from Los Baños, Laguna. His books include The Philippines Is Not a Small Country, which has won the 2022 National Book Award for Best Book of Essays in English.

Face Shield Nation by Gideon Lasco is published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press under the Bughaw imprint. The book retails at PHP 425 and is available at the Ateneo University Press Bookshop in Bellarmine Hall, and the Press’s official Lazada and Shopee stores.

Get your copy in paperback: Website | Lazada and Shopee