Staggering to next

What is foremost in my mind, after the tragedy that was Yolanda, is "what next"?

Sure, we are now giving cash and clothes and slippers. A great many employees at the office have given up their Christmas hams and baskets, a treat they look forward to every year, so that these could be donated to the victims. One officemate made a vow to donate half of his 13th month pay to the victims, an unexpected generosity of spirit that hopefully shamed the rest to do more.

Friends have donated that irreplaceable commodity; time, as they sweltered in hot gymnasiums packing rice and canned goods and sardines. In the heat, I saw what looked like a tourist with backpack in hand lining up to register as a volunteer at a relief goods center. He is British, and our inquisitive questions reveal that this Cornwall-bred youth has just landed in Manila, and has come straight from the airport to help pack tins and coffee.

I see fund drives and missions being spearheaded by the articulate and the compassionate. An amazing few have even showed up with cars at Villamor Air Base, offering to ferry refugees to their destinations in Manila.  Meanwhile, an outpouring of aid is wending its way to the outlying provinces. Hopefully, all those water and blankets and medicine will find their way into the hands of the survivors waiting desperately for their next mouthful.

The short term goal is, with all this concentration of attention and efforts and international aid, to be able to address the immediate necessities. Lives will be saved. The death toll wouldn't have been unnecessarily added to. Collective sigh of relief.

But then, what? But what happens to the affected populace after? Will there be food and shelter available for them after a month? Two months? Perhaps, the subsistence fishermen will be back to harvesting the ocean. But the daily wage workers? The salaried employees? Where will they report for work? Their cities are closed. The infrastructure is shot. The customers have fled. How will the government revitalize these areas?

Immediate planning is needed. I say planning, because what we've seen so far are knee-jerk reactions to the situation as it unfolded. I don't see well-hatched alternative strategies Plan A or Plan B or Plan C being executed. That can only mean one thing: there is likewise no master plan waiting in some desk that can be dusted off and then immediately implemented for the next two, three or five years.

A grand vision is vital. One that can address roads and communication lines and construction materials so that the economy is given the infrastucture that business needs to operate. There must be the immediate rebuilding of schools and markets. All those structures we take for granted.

What happens to the orphans? How will they be addressed? What about the college students who lost their families and have no means of support for tuition, books and subsistence? There is no push button to generate this data. Who are they? Where are they? Who will do a master survey of all those affected and somehow let us, the lucky ones who were spared the typhoon's wrath, know how we can help?

Despite computerization and modernization, the death toll will always be a working estimate. The sad thing is, the living toll will likewise mirror this uncertainty.  At the back of our heads will always be that fear that we missed an opportunity. A chance to help. Someone slipped through the cracks.

I would very much like the government to take the lead on this one.  While we are on the ground sweating at midnight, listening to Lady Gaga blaring in the background and lugging boxes of corned beef, I would like the officials whose salaries I'm paying for, after getting their beauty sleep for the past week, to sit on their collective butts at their air-conditioned offices and dream up into existence a beautiful master plan that addresses safety, shelter, livelihood, food security, and everything else each citizen is entitled to.

And that plan better be complete. Because at this point, I think our patience has worn very, very thin.