It’s officially been a year since Yolanda barreled its way through most of Central Visayas including northern Cebu and devastated everything in its path, claiming thousands of lives, destroying homes and sources of livelihood. It drove home the meaning of “a new normal” with a vengeance.
Yolanda showed the best and worst in people.
It exposed the heroes and the heels.
For starters, it highlighted the capacities of every local government unit (LGU) in dealing with calamities. Tacloban, which rose to prominence due to the TV coverage of its devastation by CNN host Anderson Cooper, was further dragged into the mud by the quarrel between Interior and Local Governments Secretary Mar Roxas and Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez.
President Benigno Aquino III didn’t help any by blaming Romualdez and local officials not aligned with his administration, and insisting that it is the primary responsibility of LGUs to protect their constituents from calamities, even of the scale of supertyphoons like Yolanda.
On the other hand, the disaster brought out the best of the Filipino’s bayanihan spirit.
Countless thousands, rich or poor, young and old pitched in to help, raising funds, distributing relief goods and rebuilding homes.
The Filipinos’ resilience drew the admiration of the world as the deluge of financial and material assistance from the international community sent the message that the country isn’t alone in its suffering and that help would come.
A year later and what has passed?
Barely a few weeks before victims marked the one year anniversary of Yolanda, the national government passed the budget for the reconstruction process which from the onset was estimated to be completed beyond 2016, an election year.
The process of recovery is slow, too slow.
The answer lies not in Government, but in the combined commitment of all quarters to act, do more work and posture less.
Natural and man-made calamities will continue to leave Filipinos vulnerable.
If anything, Yolanda and the Oct. 15 earthquake that came before it, taught many Filipinos to prepare for the worst.
Disaster reduction and mitigation will be the mantra of local governments that have learned the true cost of staying ignorant and unready.
There really is no perfect, fool-proof contingency plan in dealing with natural disasters; anyone caught in the middle of these disasters can only hope to escape Nature’s wrath.
So even as we continue the rebuilding process, we hope that we take better care of the environment so we don’t hasten and bring this devastation on our heads.
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