feelmysoul

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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

FILIPINOS ON TYPHOON SENDONG: LIVING THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS IN THE TIME OF A GREAT TRIAL

Half the day is a total boredom here in the office as the christmas season starts to kick in. I can’t even bring myself to finish the PTR that I am doing for the day so I decided to just surf the net instead.

Hitting the keyboards, I searched on various topics on Google that includes earth’s night image, Philippines’ satellite image and so on. Then I came across Typhoon Sendong and the damages that it did in the southern part of the country.

Although the Philippines is oftenly hit by a typhoon, it is unusual for Mindanao to be directly hit by it. For when it comes to Mindanao, it seems that news on terrorists attacks, rebels and bomb explosions are the more common topics.

I am not saying that the people of Mindanao are mostly rebels or that the people in Northern Luzon is more deserving to receive the wrath of nature in terms of typhoons.

I am just saying that the news that has been on the radio, paper and tv is not usual and unexpected.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why despite the Public Storm warnings made by PAGASA and the local officials in Cagayan de Oro (as they claimed to have announced), the people just opted to fearlessly spend the stormy night in their humble homes. Maybe majority of them were thinking that the passing of Typhoon Sendong won’t hurt, and at worst won’t take the lives of many. It’s just a storm, maybe they thought. And it won’t be anything like how Ondoy did in Manila or how Typhoons Pedring and Quiel left the residents of the North (Bulacan, mainly) devastated.

Maybe none thought about the aftermath of the storm, until they found themselves drowning in the muddy flood that ravaged their homes…until they see their loved ones and neighbors perished one after the other as the storm passes them.

As of this moment, death had reached over 900 while thousand others were hurt. One of the many disturbing photos that had caught my attention is of a mourning mother carrying his lifeless child who is covered with mud. From the look of it, the mother seems to cling on the littlest of hopes that she could have while holding the child, as if his life can be brought back by how much and how long she held him.

It’s really heartbreaking. And for someone like me who had not experienced to be in the middle of such a crisis, I can only imagine the horror and pain that each survivor is probably suffering from.

I can almost feel their pain…their losses. My heart feels heavy and my prayer goes to the victim of the flood. And although I have extended a little help to the victims thru cash donation, I still feel that I had not done enough..I still feel that no matter what I did to help, It won’t be able to compensate for the lives of the many that has been lost.

The event had somewhat caused the festive season to subside. While most of us, who were lucky enough not to be in the affected areas, were wrapping Christmas presents for our loved ones, the victims are maybe weeping and mourning while wrapping the remains of their loved ones in muddy blankets.

The tragedy is very untimely for Christmas… but then, as we were often told, Christmas is a time for sharing and loving. And in as many times as my heart was broken by the photos portraying the many losses of my countrymen, it was also being revived for a thousand time seeing the efforts of everyone who are willing to extend help to the unfortunate victims.

I am overwhelmed by the various posts in social networking sites that were calling for more help…More groups that were also being organized to be able to generate more help (both in cash and in kind). There were soldiers who cancelled their Christmas party celebration just to offer help to the victims.OFWs who were asking for ways on how to donate their foreign earnings to the bereaved families. Celebrities, politicians and volunteers who, for once (I am hoping) took time to really care and give hope to the hopeless.

This is surely one painful Christmas that we, especially those whose loved-ones died, will never forget…and apart from the grief and pain this Christmas curved in our history, may we not forget the lessons that many of us learned from it. Let us put our trust to the Creator and may He guide us on our way to cope up from this trial.

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