EDITORIAL - One beautiful story of humanity

One of the most beautiful and touching stories the newspapers published in these times of tragedy and calamity was that one about a delegation from Saint Bernard in Southern Leyte coming all the way to Metro Manila not just to bring relief goods but to help in relief efforts.

The town of Saint Bernard, you see, lost almost the entire barangay of Guinsaugon in a rain-induced landslide back in 2006, and town officials and citizens have come to repay their debt of gratitude.

The Guinsaugon tragedy brought forth the best in people. The response was not only swift but sweeping. The mud that covered rescuers digging for bodies had the same creamed coffee look. Washed clean, they revealed a global spectrum of skin tones -- brown, black, white, yellow.

The world responded with one of the greatest relief efforts ever assembled, and more than the food, medicine, clothing, and construction materials that poured in, it was the sense of human community and caring that really gave the Guinsaugon survivors the strength to live on.

If there is anywhere in the Philippines today where you can find a people strengthened by a sense of life's true meaning, it has got to be in Guinsaugon, and by extension, the whole town of Saint Bernard.

And that is why it did not come as a surprise that the people of Saint Bernard would do what the newspapers reported they did. But while it did not come as a surprise, the gesture nevertheless moves us in a way that makes life seem beautiful even in the midst of tragedy.

The story is so beautiful it makes us forget the little episodes of human weakness that seem to always complicate an already difficult situation, such as that nursing student who duped people into making cash donations for the Metro Manila relief effort to a friend's bank account.

Or those who, on account of their suffering, want the whole world to stop and suffer with them, blaming God and resenting the fact that many people in other parts of the country were spared the ravages of the typhoon and can afford to be happy with their good fortune.