After typhoon Ruby comes relief, and thank God, we are all safe, except a few who lost their lives. When we first saw the trajectory of the typhoon on t.v. central Cebu was right on its path. With a kph approaching 200, it was likely to become a super-typhoon, the report said. What, another Yolanda? Will there be a repeat performance of smothered towns and cities, of floating dead bodies and homeless people? And what will happen to Christmas in the Visayas and other areas? We remembered typhoon Ruping which devastated Cebu City in 1990. Houses were ripped off and for weeks water and electricity were non-existent. Would there be a repeat performance with Ruby? The forecast said the storm was expected to rage for days, including the feast day of the Immaculate Concepcion on December 8.
Prayer--it was good that the Church motivated the people to pray for deliverance. When nature's wrath threatens, is there a better recourse than prayer? So the people prayed, aware as they were of that story in the Bible when Jesus calmed the storm that frightened his disciples, "Master, master we are going down," they called to Jesus who was asleep in the boat at that time.
Like the disciples many Filipinos called to Jesus for help. And miraculously the rage of Ruby softened, the winds lost their sting and no surging waves came. Properties were destroyed but not extensively. Lives were lost but not by the thousands that last year's super-typhoon brought about.
As I write this Ruby had already blown out of the country, with its speed slackened. There was flooding in some areas but this was moderate unlike the ones wrought by previous typhoons.
After Ruby, what comes next? What comes next is of course the people's usual way of life. Those in the power circles will resume their infighting and corrupt practices. There will be the usual accusations and counter-accusations in the manner of a mutually assured political destruction. Criminals will go back to their twisted ways while drug lords will go on peddling their deadly concoctions. And what of the rank and file? They will be busy as always eking a living and while some of them will remain prayerful most of them will forget about God.
The need to survive has made many of the poor callous and insensitive to spiritual concerns and lessons of love and forgiveness are far from their minds. Some of them can still be seen in the churches or prayer houses but their hearts are not with God and their obsessions are on those that satisfy the senses and gratify their quest for name and fame.
God, we are taught, is not the source of dire happenings like typhoons. But we are also taught that like a good Father he sometimes chastises his wayward children. In fact, he destroyed sinners like those in Sodom ad Gomorah or he prunes the proud to check their deviant ways. Those killer phenomena of nature, are those not God's reminder that we should forego our wayward ways and go back to Him?
The dogged secularists would not of course accept the idea of divine chastisement. Its climate change, they say, the effect of massive pollutions from factories and motor vehicles. Global warming they believe is man-made and God has nothing to do with it. They are right, man is the immediate cause, but who's the first cause?
As scientist debate the issue of climate change global warming continues. This spawns more super-typhoons and since our archipelago happens to be on the path of these disturbances we are likely to be hit by more killer howlers like Yolanda. This should be enough reason for us to pray and pray hard for divine intervention. Surely God will not forget his promise that if we seek his protection no harm shall come our way.
After the storm we felt relieved. At the same time we should feel thankful to God for his protection.