Taking care of ourselves

My father’s house was completely devastated by the floods. He rebuilt his life, at 59 years old and settled in Provident Village. None of us ever thought he would have to escape to his attic as he watched the flood waters rise to the second floor of his home and damage everything he worked for for the past ten years. As he was throwing out mementos he painstakingly collected for decades – photos, cards, letters – he acknowledged that this was the most painful thing he had to do. And at 59 years old, with his good years behind him, how will the government help him regain his second wind?

I don’t think they have any idea how. Not for my father, not for the families of the over 200 people who perished, not for the nearly half a million citizens displaced by the typhoon. They don’t have a clue.

And so I officially give up. What little hope I had left for the government had been washed away by the flood waters, and have mingled with the unidentifiable mess of mud, garbage and my countrymen’s broken dreams. It was only a matter of time before this happened, but instead of taking precaution, they took time. They also took the money and all the other resources that were supposed to help the people. In short, they took away our lives.

Typhoon Ondoy and the subsequent flooding of Manila was a catastrophe waiting to happen. I am appalled that the government did wait for it to happen, and then begin scrambling at the last minute “to do the right thing.” The right thing should’ve been to repair the drainage systems, educate people on climate change, implement laws and policies on caring for the environment, and enact concrete measures for waste management.

But that’s all in the past now isn’t it? We know we’ve always been let down – why expect anything else? We’ve learned to live with hardship (20 typhoons a year, regular flooding in low-lying areas, evacuation centers that kill more survivors than the calamities they’ve escaped from) and in spite of it. In fact it’s in our DNA to laugh at adversity and make a joke or two, to lighten the load or comfort a friend.

But how much longer can we manage to shrug off the government’s negligence? How much more BS can we take from corrupt politicians and breakdowns in our system? How much longer are we going to live with pitiable health care, pathetic disaster management programs, and deplorable conditions in many parts of our city – all hazards just waiting to become disasters?

If the government can’t take care of us, then we just have to take care of ourselves. As Atty. Frances Pesayco-Aquino (my aunt) so eloquently put it: we just get down and do what we have to do – with government, without it, in spite of it. In fact, news reports have been trumpeting the efforts of volunteers: on the ground, in the water, overseas and online. The Filipinos are coming together, of their own accord, to take care of one another. And we don’t need any grandstanding trapos to lead us. We don’t need empty promises from government officials and agencies. All we need is each other and our bayanihan spirit, our innate kindness and concern to see our neighbors better off than how they previously were.

We’ve taken the first step to rebuilding our country and ourselves, by reaching in, literally and figuratively and pulling one another out of the murky flood waters of indifference.

These are the real Filipinos – the men, women and children who suffer yet are still able to lend a helping hand and a smile. We just need to stick together. And if there’s any joke we will crack it will be that the government is the biggest joke of all. You can never put the Pinoy down; we’ll be laughing in your face as you try!

We can get through this. Kapit-bisig, mga kababayan! And when all the hard work is done, give each other a pat on the back: we did it, all of it, together!

-with thanks from Ian Roxas, Enteng Balasbas, Atty. Frances Aquino