by Hayley Foran

For fourth-year Industrial Engineering major Timmy Tantuico, family is everything; the most important thing. After spending last summer in America and the past fall semester abroad studying at RIT Dubai, Tantuico hasn’t seen her family for more than three weeks in a year. Now, in the wake of the ever-spreading novel coronavirus, she faces an uncertain future and wonders when the long-awaited reunion will finally come to fruition.

The Phillipine capital of Manila, where Tantuico originates and the rest of her family currently resides, is on lockdown with no inbound or outbound flights until further notice in an attempt to flatten the curve of COVID-19.

Tantuico, who was completing another co-op in Greene, NY for the spring term, started making arrangements in March to end her internship early and get a flight home before plans were made by her home country or the U.S. government to close their borders. 

“I had originally scheduled my flight for March 31st when I first heard that RIT was going online. I needed time to get over a cold, change my visa, pack my things and finish my projects at work before I traveled and that gave me about two weeks to do it,” said Tantuico, “But around March 20th my parents called me and said that all flights to Manila had been canceled.”

This travel restriction, set by the Phillipian government, was set to expire on April 12th, but in recent weeks, new developments and slow progress to stop the virus’s spread has extended Tantuico’s stay in the United States forcing her to quickly rearrange her plans. 

“When my first flight got canceled I had no idea what to do and I’m the type of person to keep busy so I called my manager back and asked if I could stay at work until April 10th and I scheduled another flight for April 16th,” Tantuico said. “I finished three more weeks at work and then last Sunday I got an email that my flight for April 16th was canceled and that’s when I was like, holy shit, I’m not going to be able to get home.”

The travel restrictions in Manila now extend to April 30th and, as of now, there are no flights available for Tantuico until early June. An ocean apart from her family, Tantuico is now in Rochester checking for flights daily in the hopes to board the first opportunity back home.

“I called my parents immediately when I first heard and my mom and I were crying for hours and my dad said that I should have seen it coming and I did, I was prepared for it, but when I got that email there were just no words to describe how I was feeling.” 

To step into Tantuico’s shoes would first require you to find them. At one point in March and early April, Tantuico’s things were everywhere – in cars, boxes and garages in both Rochester and Greene as she worked to move out of her apartment after leaving her job at Raymond Corp and lease a new room back in Rochester. This was just a piece of the puzzle Tantuico had to work hard to put together.

Her plans over the course of the past month have been scrapped, made new and backed-up. 

In constant communication with her family, friends and advisors at both the International Student Office and the Co-op Office, Tantuico has made many difficult decisions, arrangements and rearrangements in an effort to find answers, consolation and hope – the best of which she can still find back at home in Manila.

“I have a habit of FaceTiming with my family everyday in the morning and we’re a really Catholic family so we’ve been praying the rosary together and just hoping that I can get a flight home soon. I’m thankful to be back in Rochester with friends right now. I think that’s the best way to cope with everything that’s been going on.”

Tantuico is a senior member of the Zeta Tau Alpha fraternity on campus and a Peer Advisor for the International Student Office which has brought her many connections in the area, the most comforting of which are her peers in the international student community who are all working together to understand and overcome these new challenges. 

“No one really knows what international students go through unless they are one of them so we’re all keeping in contact and keeping busy in our group chats. We’re just each other’s family now,” said Tantuico.  

When Tantuico returns home she looks forward to playing games with her younger brothers and sisters and spending as much of her last summer in Manila as she can before she returns to the U.S. for her final year at RIT and the start of her career, but with an unsteady future at hand, there may still be arrangements and rearrangements to come.

“My parents told me, ‘If you come home you have to prepare not to come back,’ and I’m approaching my fifth year and I was looking forward to that, but now I have to prepare for the worst. I mean, my parents were telling me as early as February to start wearing masks and I was like, ‘No, why? There are no cases in New York,’ and they said, ‘You never know,’ and now, we know.”