IMAGINE

(A story of disasters and Filipino human behaviour)
 





















 

“Time to get to know the Filipino people... unbelievably resilient, long suffering, good natured, uber friendly, loyal, ingenius, and a bunch of survivors.

‘At the end of the day, the Filipinos will just shake off the dirt from their clothes and go about their business... and SMILE. They do not complain much,

they will bear as long as they can.

‘Maybe this is why they were given the “privilege” of bearing the burden of the strongest typhoon ever recorded.

‘The indomitable human spirit at its finest.”

 

So CNN has published, and it is unimportant whether a subscriber or the network’s news team had written it.  It doesn’t matter.  What matters is in a few words it captured so well the indubitable spirit that is uniquely Filipino’s, the finest compliment accorded to a people suffering that the thought would make anyone teary eyed.

 

Calamities always bring out the best, and so with the worst, in people that if you want to see plainly the fabric that makes up a man you have to expose him to the extremes.  How he deals with a situation would tell his worth.

 

Yes, Filipinos are so resilient, hardworking and in many ways unique that they are admired.

 

The “super typhoon” with international name Hainan (local name Yolanda) may be the strongest typhoon ever recorded that hit the world or the Philippines but it was not the first to kill thousands or brought unimaginable havoc. 

 

A few years back Ondoy had devastated eastern Metro Manila with its floods in 2009, Typhoon Sendong ravaged Cagayan de Oro of Central Mindanao in 2012, and there was Typhoon Reming (typhoon Durian) on November 30, 2006 that hardest hit the Province of Albay at more than 200 kilometer per hour center winds.

 

The world watched as we endured the inconvenience amidst the stench of death, but humanity lent a helping hand to get us back on our feet.  Only this time though someone has cared to look deeper and “get to know the Filipino people” as he/she wrote on the Cable News Network.

 

But how does one sees the inconvenience from a victim’s perspective? We in Bicol may have experienced but half of what the Warays have gone through and it is that I want to share. 

 

We also have our own share of experiences of how it feels to be isolated while the whole world watches when we Albayanos were crushed to the ground by a typhoon some seven years ago, cut from the rest of the world.

 

We never knew then what happened outside of some few kilometre radius from where we lived.  We may have thought we were okay, or had the idea that we were hopeless when all the while many others were in worst condition.

 

It was traumatic experience, the fear simply hangs on even if everybody can still muster a smile just to be thankful to be alive.

 

Nobody could understand the victims’ woes unless one has been a victim too.  Nobody can know light unless he has experienced darkness, and nobody, nobody can understand how it feels to lose an entire family as suddenly and unexpectedly.  No one can imagine still the deeper agony of one whose loved one is missing.  The uncertainty kills more than the reality of death.

 

The pro poor factor and himself had experienced what the rest of us has gone through that should be considered also when we chose our next leaders.  That way we can be better prepared for extreme natural emergencies rather than when the elite are calling the shots.

 

The loss of a love one can never be an isolated thing nor has the same effect as on others.  Pain is relative with varying intensities and  it may linger on which time cannot heal but grows more painful with each passing day.

 

Grief is purely a private affair, a window in human emotions that demand the courtesy of space.    A person in grief or deep suffering needs a time to be alone as much as he needs to pour out his emotions.  Michaelangelo had captured the privacy of anguish in his “Pieta” where the Blessed Virgin Mary grieves silently on the lifeless body of Christ with the beloved apostle and followers at bay.

 

It is in bad taste and grossly insensitive for most television networks to focus their cameras on persons in profound sorrow as if they find delight in the misfortunes of others.

 

Perhaps we all undergo difficulties and tragedies not as chastisement but to make us stronger like fire hardening metal or like fire purifying the good in us to separate the gold from the worthless rock.

 

Tragedies also soften us to be more sensitive of the plight of others, for we can never know pain unless we too have been hurt, we can never know hunger unless we at one time had gone hungry, and one can never know despair unless he had been despised.

 

Only by experiencing difficult times ourselves that we can be better men rather than be bitter of life’s realities. It teaches us humility, compassion and charity, and perhaps the meaning of hope and dependence.

 

Dalai Lama IV had said “There is a saying in Tibetan, 'Tragedy should be utilized as a source of strength. ‘No matter what sort of difficulties, how painful experience is, if we lose our hope, that's our real disaster. ‘When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways--either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength.” 

To be strong from life’s challenges does not mean readiness for survival, but to be strong so others can rely on us.  Humanity would break in its weak links. We are inter dependent with each other.

 

Learning and maturing from our past mistakes and to knowing what good it brought us are important in recovering from tragedies.  Tragedies are not completely mended without the maturity and wisdom.

 

Typhoon Reming (Durian) that hit the province of Albay in 2006 had brought to each one of us personal understanding of what life really is.

 

Foremost perhaps is (1) There are many things in our possession that we really do not need but we are totally unaware of.  We have not missed many of the things we kept to be important when it were washed away or damaged by the floods.  We lost many things but we don’t need them anyway, the others we can easily replace.

 

(2) There are no reasons why we should be sore or maintain ill will against our neighbours.  In time of need it is them who will be with us.  Neither should we be inconvenienced of some things around for we never knew that it will save us in the end.

 

(3) The ordinary things we take for granted may be a special for others.  We usually take a Jollibee burger meal as an ordinary fare, but for a couple of boys who helped us clear the debris it was a feast.  They said “they will go to sleep with a smile of their lips”.

 

(4) The person that we may perceive as uncaring and hostile, usually with fear, is actually more of a Christian than most of us.  At the typhoon’s height a Muslim naval soldier has braved the strong currents to save many lives before losing his own.  “Imagine there’s no countries, ‘and religion too... (Imagine, by John Lennon).”

 

(5) God does not give us more than what we can bear – literally.   Many fine houses  were destroyed by the over 200 kilometer center winds but we lost only some galvanized iron roofings of the garage, possibly because its replacement is all we can afford.

 

(6) God is present even in the midst of disaster.   The typhoon felt as if devils were let loose to prey on humans.  Roofs creaked like with a dozen devils jumping and pounding on it.  But in the howling winds a sensitive heart in faith can feel God’s protective hands.  “Be still, and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10)”, to whose assurance we surrendered to and survived.

 

(7)    Nature has a way of controlling population that society has no need of anti life legislations like the sugar coated “Reproductive Health Bill”.  Population is kept at bay by natural phenomena like war, famine, pestilence and calamities.

 

(8)   Nothing is too small to share.  The many “little” that we have will be big eventually.  “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito” (Dalai Lama XIV).

 

(9) Christmas can be meaningfully and solemnly celebrated sans commercialism and all the pomp.   A few days after the typhoon a Reuters News correspondent has noticed us putting up the traditional Christmas “Belen” or the nativity set.  He was curious that he arranged for an interview, finding it odd to see us as the only one who was putting up the nativity set when the entire province was in darkness and in ruins.  Simply I said that Christmas is not dependent on life’s comforts, but it has to be celebrated even in difficult times as thanksgiving.  It was a chance that we again center Chirstmas on Christ rather on materiality that conflicts with spirituality.

 

Deep religiousity was revived in the post typhoon years.  People have re-learned to be more united and to pray fervently as in the incessant recitation of the Oratio Imperata, a prayer for deliverance from calamities both natural and man made.

 

In sharp conflict with the Bohol earthquake and typhoon Yolanda, churches were not spared.  While during typhoon Reming churches and religious images were miraculously unscathed. 

 

In a marine school’s office (the edifice’s picture posted here) all heavy furnitures and equipments tumbled in flood waters and mud.  But sceptics should believe that the light cabinet on which stood the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary was intact.  

 

Only a few of seemingly strange phenomena.  But why churches in the Visayas were not spared by Hainan?  Other than they being made mostly of limestones hundred of years ago, it is because we should not anchor nor focus our spirituality and faith on buildings, the same way that we ask God “not to look upon our sins but on the faith of His church”.

 

Calamities also bring out the most unpleasant in people, like the looting that occurred after typhoon Yolanda, which some clinical psychologists wish to justify.

 

The drive for survival is always in us for the preservation of the specie.  But as rational beings it has to be tempered with morality and could be in the subtle form of hoarding or panic buying.   To loot for food, clothing and to struggle for shelter may be moral and excusable in a civilized society.  But to take non essentials for basic survival is stealing and transgresses the norms of ethics.

 

The need for self preservation is a human instinct that the “cannibalism” of the plane crash survivors in the Andes mountain was morally justified.

 

For many week after Durian no store was open in Legazpi City but there was no looting.   Residents organized themselves in orderly lines as they waited patiently for relief goods to be distributed.

 

Pleasant things are always marred by isolated irritants like greed and politics.  A barangay official insisted that all relief goods be turned over to him rather than be given directly to his constituents.  We just left and proceeded to another village some two kilometres away.

 

What is admirable is the residents of the village we left followed us on foot and made their own line and waited patiently until we were through and can attend to them.

 

We have to keep in mind though that people needing help still have their pride intact, that in giving aid to calamity victims we should always put in prime consideration their dignity.  Being divested of their possessions does not strip them of their dignity as human beings.  They need food yes, but it’s no excuse for us to throw them crumbs and discards nor use them for personal agenda.

Lucky we were then for having local officials who kept things running even risking even their personal safety.   These were the leaders who themselves drove garbage trucks, directed vehicular traffic, coordinated with local businessmen just to keep things going.  Help came from all over that by Christmas 90 percent of the City was energized with the assistance of electric cooperatives of other regions.

 

John Lennon is not a dreamer when he “imagined of people living life in peace, a brotherhood of men sharing all the world, unbounded by religion, weaned from materiality.”  It is possible that “the world live as one” if only all would cast off greed and personal agenda.   It is just unfortunate that sometimes we have to learn it the hard way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few days after Typhoon Reming (Durian) a beautiful rainbow was seen for some days across the City of Legazpi.   It reminds me of the rainbow after the great flood as “God’s pledge of commitment to Noah to never again use a second deluge against humanity (Genesis 9:1–17)”.

 

 

 

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky.

Imagine all the people
Living for today...

 

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too

Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one.

-- “Imagine”,

 by John Lennon (1940-1980)