Think again.
Filipinos generally tend to mind their own business. By avoiding conflict or confrontation we become culturally compliant. In a way it goes back to the tribal days when the weak or the powerless achieve survival by staying out of the way or being unseen.
Two typhoons and 600 dead bodies later, we may soon come to realize that minding our own business is equivalent to agreeing to our annihilation or displacement.
The saying goes: “if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything”.
Now more and more people are beginning to realize that they should have done something sooner about the things they felt the strongest. With some amount of remorse a group of men I meet with regularly expressed how sorry they felt about not having acted sooner about the “green projects” they believed.
Imagine how much garbage came down with the floodwaters during Ondoy’s wrath. Well a suspended Mayor by the name of Pedro Cuerpo is currently fanning the story that a lot of that water came from the dump site in Montalban where garbage the equivalent of 10,000 garbage trucks collapsed into the waterway creating an artificial dam a month before Ondoy struck the Philippines.
So if we think about our failure to launch recycling at home and in the barangay, we could admit that some of that garbage floating around Marikina, Pasig, and Cainta etc came from our homes.
Ironically, if we launched the “Balik Bayong” program we could have reduced the plastic and the garbage.
If we launched the “Reduce your take home and your take out” program, where people try to limit the packaging and materials in the things they buy, then there would be less waste materials to dispose of.
For many years tourists have lamented the disappearance of Pine trees that used to cover much of the Baguio City landscape. But that really did not bother the politicians of Baguio who got caught up in urbanization and developing a commercially active constituency. But now that a hundred people (+/-) died overnight in a landslide in Trinidad valley, a lot of people lamented how pine trees could have saved peoples lives.
People say it’s pointless to criticize local government officials who have been buying high-end vehicles such as Land Cruisers, Hyundai Tucson and Toyota Camry and Innova. Well, if we had lobbied or worked for a law that places a category for the type of vehicles that government could buy, they could have used the two to three hundred thousand pesos saved from each car and they could have bought at least one genuine Achilles rubber boat.
Some people have the silly idea that rescue rubber boats are the inflatable Mattel toys you buy at SM. Sorry kids real rubber boats cost real money, like a couple of thousand dollars not including the outboard motors that power them.
Fortunately none of those expensive luxury vehicles were damaged because many of your local officials are not local residents. Many of them live in Greenhills, Corinthians, and Alabang etc. So I guess you also don’t think we should push for a law that requires local official to live and “suffer” with us when there is a typhoon or major flood!
It’s interesting how tragedy and suffering can reawaken commitment. Now would be a good time to start with all your lost causes. Start at home, start with your self. As they also say: “Act now, because the life you save may be yours”.
* * *
Just before Ondoy and Pepeng hit the Philippines, my wife and I had agreed to live by a promise where we would always make an extra effort to be nice to the people who collect the garbage, the barangay Tanods who patrol our streets, the street sweepers, the police and the newspaper delivery guy.
As I watched the newspaper guy do his early morning rounds in pouring rain, I remember chirping out: “Today’s news is brought to you by the newsboy”. In spite of the typhoon, our garbage was collected, and every morning when there was a break in the rain, the street sweepers were spread out cleaning as they always did.
A glass of water, sandwiches, “thank you” and “how are you doing” may not be your character, but just remember that without them you would have to dig a very deep hole in your garden if you had one. Don’t wait until Christmas for them to ask you to show your appreciation through a white envelope. Do it now.
* * *
It’s far from over.
Our national calamity is far from over and in many places the reality is only just beginning to set in. Many of us have given generously but much of the giving has stopped because people are in a hurry to establish “normalcy” and have given the impression that the worst is over.
Well it’s not. If you have friends who were directly affected by the floods, please make time for them because a lot of them will be experiencing posttraumatic stress or may still be in shock.
While doing the rounds helping people get their vehicles back on the road, I observed that a number of vehicle owners “left” their cars standing outside their homes. For many it was a matter of priority. Fix the house first deal with the luxuries later. But for others, it has been plain and simple shock and a gnawing sense of helplessness that somehow took root.
We all have to look out for this and reboot our friends. As I told my team mates Pacho, Sam, Alvin and Tim. We did not fix cars today. we fixed lives. And to those who have helped others:
HEBREWS 6:10
God is not unjust; He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.