by Reyman Sy
In the past few weeks, the world witnessed the Philippines being bombarded with natural disasters.
On October 15, a 7.2-magnitude earthquake badly hit Bohol and Cebu, destroying public structures, homes, old churches, leaving thousands in evacuation centers without food, money, and without certainty on when they could sleep well once again.
Even before the Philippines could stand up, another calamity badly hit the Visayas region. This time was through its wind and water. It was November 8 when Super Typhoon Yolanda rampaged through Samar, Leyte, and neighboring islands, destroying structures with its strong winds and high water surges, flooding low areas, and causing landslides in higher areas with its heavy rain, leaving another batch of thousands of Filipinos dead, homeless, without food, and water.
But despite the unfortunate events, hope remains in the hearts of these people. It’s true that we, Filipinos,always try our best to look at the positive side of everything no matter how bad things are.
Filipinos seems to be ‘programmed’ to be always happy. We have this devilmay-care attitude especially when it comes to stressful times. Same goes with the line “the rain is so heavy…let’s go play outside”. This is what makes us, Filipinos, unique.
Another thing that makes the Filipinos different is that, because of our religious background, we learn not to despair because we believe that everything happens for a reason and that it all falls under God’s plan. No matter how many times we may fall, we are certain to rise again. All thanks to our faith to God.
Dumagueteños are considerably blessed to have not experienced what our brothers and sisters in Tacloban are going through right now. We should be thankful for a lot of things: thankful that we’ve been spared from such disaster, thankful of what we have right now especially our food and water which are scarce in Tacloban, thankful of our clothes, our access to public health service, our comfy homes. The list goes on.
And because we are blessed, we shall give more. Donation drives are everywhere. And if you have already donated once, let it not stop there. If you still have time and resources, GIVE MORE. If money is also your problem, there are several repacking centers in need of volunteers. GIVE TIME.
Let’s thank God that He never took away the hope inside every Juans’ heart. We just have to remember that we are where God wants us to be at this very moment and every experience is part of His divine plan.
