Memoirs of an Amnesiac

On the first week of December, our school started accepting students who came from Tacloban. Two of whom were Fourth Year students and were placed under my class. Even when most of us (their subjects teachers) were clueless about the sudden change, we accepted them nevertheless, having full faith that they would be able to adapt easily to our school system. When I first learned about it, I talked to my advisory class about the "new students." I had warned them about being very tactful about what to ask their "soon-to-be" classmates, anticipating that they with their inquisitive minds would ask their "would-be" classmates about how they had survived the calamity. Little did I know that I have within my classroom two strong youths who not only survived Yolanda's fiercest winds and storm surges but also rose from the rubble that could have been their immediate graves.

No sooner did the two students start sharing about their experiences during the onset of the Yolanda storm surge. One shared that he had to hold on to their house's stairs just to be able to survive. The other, who lives in Guian, Samar (where the first storm had a landfall), recalled how he and his family had to hold on to an electric post near their house. What I thought was something offensive to the students (my own students' curious inquiries), turned out to be some sort of therapeutic catharsis on their part. Somehow, my own unfounded predilection caught the better of me.

Even after several weeks since Yolanda struck, the news is still rife with reports about relief goods not being sent properly to the victims (some of them even have been allegedly sold in department stores), repacked and replaced with other locally branded goods, destroyed (as in the case with rice), worse, stolen. My heart aches with anger at the seemingly apathetic opportunists we call as fellowmen. They come in various pseudo names: DSWD officer, barangay captain, and some other local government officials. They disgust me.

Despite these, there is still something to be thankful for. Remember that Japanese child who gave away his savings stored in a piggie bank as donation? How about the street kid who donated 2 pesos? Not to mention those countless others who may have been helping even until now, when all the foreign aid have been pulled out of the disaster-hit areas.

On Christmas Day, I was a bit dumb founded when I entered our church and saw the creche (locally named as belen)at the altar where the priest's missal was situated. It was not the image of the Holy Family that really caught my eye but the background of a tarpaulin printed view of the rubble that could be seen in Tacloban. It was a sharp contrast to how most of us really view Christmas: a celebration of left and right gatherings, family reunions and endless holiday rush.

It depicted a view of how we Filipinos must learn to rise from every rubble that comes our way.

Whether it is caused by Yolanda or not.