May you rest in peace.
It was the evening of Sunday (11.28.09). It was my father’s birthday and the third day of the Northern Luzon Debate Championships. I got home by 10 and sat down to rest. What my eyes met on the day’s paper will be one of the events that won’t escape my mind as long as I live.
It is very ironic that I spent my day in an auditorium with bright people and debating on policies and values while the typhoon Ondoy (international code name Ketsana) raged over the Philippine metropolis and created a killer sea to claim lives and take away properties. I cannot help but think that if only that same auditorium was in Manila, then it could have been an aquarium if not a refuge for some victims.
I cried for how something like these can happen. Like a thief in the night, the rain just came and poured in a few hours what it could have shedded in days. It is Mother Nature’s cry. But to put it in the sense that even the innocent is claimed is something I cannot comprehend.
My Business Law instructor related it in “what if that is how the end of the world would look like?” It is very hushed, unspoken. You just go to bed and say your prayers. But before the sun could set on God-only-knows when, you would be fighting for dear life.
I am very troubled and blessed by Ondoy. I think this is what it means with “unity and diversity.” Tears would always spring from my eyes whenever I see the news of rising figures of death and the sight of fellow Filipinos and foreigners alike guiding each other… Helping, donating, embracing, loving.
Well, I am glad that through the media, we can see that we are finally living to that lesson. We are all standing up in our won ways to help and do even the most minute things for them.
My brother asked: “If only there is something we can do too.” Being far away from Manila, I think there is always something. After all, prayers can also dissipate even the biggest of the seas.
It is very ironic that I spent my day in an auditorium with bright people and debating on policies and values while the typhoon Ondoy (international code name Ketsana) raged over the Philippine metropolis and created a killer sea to claim lives and take away properties. I cannot help but think that if only that same auditorium was in Manila, then it could have been an aquarium if not a refuge for some victims.
I cried for how something like these can happen. Like a thief in the night, the rain just came and poured in a few hours what it could have shedded in days. It is Mother Nature’s cry. But to put it in the sense that even the innocent is claimed is something I cannot comprehend.
My Business Law instructor related it in “what if that is how the end of the world would look like?” It is very hushed, unspoken. You just go to bed and say your prayers. But before the sun could set on God-only-knows when, you would be fighting for dear life.
I am very troubled and blessed by Ondoy. I think this is what it means with “unity and diversity.” Tears would always spring from my eyes whenever I see the news of rising figures of death and the sight of fellow Filipinos and foreigners alike guiding each other… Helping, donating, embracing, loving.
Sometimes, I think what Ondoy wants to teach us after all is not death and hurt and pain. Maybe she wants us to face life with the colors that only grief and hurt can bring. Maybe she wants us to realize that regardless of who we are and what we do, we are all the same: we love, we feel, we cry. I think I realized that your money cannot help you in this impasse.
Well, I am glad that through the media, we can see that we are finally living to that lesson. We are all standing up in our won ways to help and do even the most minute things for them.
My brother asked: “If only there is something we can do too.” Being far away from Manila, I think there is always something. After all, prayers can also dissipate even the biggest of the seas.
[sept.30, 2009]
from my journal
from my journal
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