This Filipino Created an App to Honor Fallen COVID-19 Frontliners

How do you honor the healthcare frontliners who have risked their lives in the service of protecting us from the coronavirus? For this Filipino designer, the answer is simple: through an app. 

The app is an illustrated list of doctors who have passed away in the line of duty because of COVID-19. There are also links to news and tweets about each of them.

“My intention is to recognize their sacrifices and inspire people to still have hope in this (seemingly) hopeless period,” creator Rey Alejandro tells Esquire Philippines. “Also I created it so there’s a dedicated place to get the latest news and social posts about frontliners, without the fake news and politics we get from the TV and social media.”

Photo by Rey Alejandro.

Alejandro said he was inspired to create the app when he started seeing Filipino doctors dying of COVID-19.

“It’s really heartbreaking,” he says. “They’re working tirelessly and risking their lives to save others. I don’t want them to be just a number or a statistic. They have stories, families and dreams that someday may be forgotten. I hope to make their stories last long and be heard by a lot of people.”

One unique thing about the app is that it doesn’t just include Filipino doctors. Alejandro said he decided to feature frontline workers from many different countries because the pandemic is a global crisis that doesn’t just affect Filipinos.

“I want to remove this stereotypes we have for certain countries like Iran, Syria, China, that (they) are all bad people. But (just) like us, they’re humans that are experiencing this pandemic. Like us, they have frontliners who are dying of COVID-19. And like us they have families and stories that are worth sharing.”

You can check out and download the app in this link.