How are Filipinos coping?
November 10, 2013 by benign0
“What might be the true full extent of the devastation
wreaked by super-typhoon Haiyan (code-named “Yolanda”) has been revealed in
recent reports from “a Red Cross” official who quoted horrific numbers that
dwarf initial death toll estimates…
“We estimate 1,000
people were killed in Tacloban and 200 in Samar province,” Gwendolyn Pang, secretary
general of the Philippine Red Cross, said of two coastal areas where Haiyan hit
first as it began its march Friday across the archipelago.
Tacloban City bore the brunt of the power of what had been
cited as the planet’s biggest cyclone of the year barrelling through the
Philippines’ Visayas region “3.5 times more forceful than the United States’
Hurricane Katrina in 2005″. Yolanda comes in the heels of the devastation
earlier brought on by a powerful earthquake that hit nearby Bohol Island
several weeks ago.
A meme that was widely-shared in Philippine social media
today described as a “privilege” the Philippines’ misfortune of “bearing the
burden of [being hit] by the strongest typhoon ever recorded”. Presumably this
“privilege”, if we are to understand where the creator of this meme might have
been coming from, is with regard to what is likely seen by many to be a
long-overdue recognition of Filipinos’ “resilience” in the face of horrific
adversity…
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.
The above and the rest of the text in the meme is displayed
next to a logo of CNN implying that this was part of an actual news report
published by the prestigious international news organisation.
One can quite easily understand a nation’s search for
meaning as it reels from multiple challenges thrown at it as if to test how
much its people can “bear” with a “smile”. The earthquake in Bohol that killed
hundreds and reduced centuries-old churches to rubble, the appalling pork
barrel thievery scandal that has all but discredited Philippine “democracy”, a
withdrawal of Filipinos’ visa-free travel access to Hong Kong by that
principality’s legislators, and now this.”
I THINK ALL THESE CHALLENGES ARE TO WAKE US UP FROM THE STUPOR
OF THE PRIVILEGED MAJORITY THAT WE SHOULD WORK TOGETHER FOR THE COMMON GOOD –
AND TO FOREGO SHORT-MINDED SELFISH BACK-BITING. HOW CAN THESE CHALLENGES END,
IF MANY STILL FAIL TO APPRECIATE WHAT THIS GOVERNMENT HAS ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED.
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