Making Sense of Sendong

The whole nation mobilized because of it. And for a minute, our humble city and its region got the attention and sympathy of the world.

 A couple of hours before midnight, all went black.

I managed to wake up around midnight because of the eerie constant hiss of the wind and the banging noise of my bedroom window. The shaking of a metal sheen resonated behind these noises and the streets; void of people. These were the subtle signs that something sinister is happening.

Around 6:30 in the morning, my parents woke me up so we can assess what damage this unusual storm might have caused down the street in Burgos. The sun was already shining its normal course while we were almost ploughing through the thickly muddied street. I saw people already scraping mud off their concrete floors and piling up their soaked and destroyed belongings. Their faces still managed to create a smile so I figured this might just be a “manageable” flood. Unknown to me was the chaos already griping the residents just blocks away.

My childhood nanny is living just a couple of blocks past the hanging bridge of Isla de Oro from where we first made sense of what just happened.  Anxiously I decided to check her situation. As I ploughed through the thick mud going to my nanny’s place, I passed by the hanging bridge connecting Burgos to Isla de Oro. So many people and what was left of their belongings were scattered around. They were all soaked in mud and some still shivering cold under the heat of the morning sun. Then it dawned on me that houses or things were not the only casualties, but human lives as well. I can vividly remember walking pass 2 teenagers crying. They were inside a muddied motorela bowing and weeping their hearts out and their faces clearly speak the grief of family members lost. A couple of feet away, I can hear people already speaking of missing loved ones and all stood still before a rescue team recovering bodies scattered at the river banks. It was a horrible unimaginable and heart wrenching scene. I felt I was in the aftermath scene of a disaster movie but this one is real and raw. I was then able to assess the situation of my nanny and her family. Thank God they are all safe but all their properties are gone.

Back home, I can see from our terrace the increasing activity in the Somo funeral chapel. Out of curiosity, I summoned the courage to go there and see the scene for myself. Ten pale bodies lay before me. There were babies, a pregnant woman, old people and children. Their faces are still clear and vivid in my memory. The scene was just too overwhelming for me but I felt that I have to see it for me to understand the full length of this disaster. It took a man crying over her dead wife and washing her muddied face with water that made me leave and tremble in grief.

The scenes in Burgos and in the funeral home are enough for me to make a clearer sense of the scale and magnitude of this catastrophe. I then went on and volunteered for the relief operations organized by Xavier University.

The aftermath of the disaster can never be defined solely by the extent of destruction Sendong brought into our city and region. More than that, the aftermath of Sendong is best measured by the indomitable Filipino spirit that came to life in all forms and sizes. These typhoons that have been battering our nation for centuries left not only destruction in its wake but it also planted the seeds of that Filipino spirit of sturdiness and resiliency, bayanihan and pakikiisa in the face of a raging storm. It is still those Filipino values that we summon in these trying times. We never ran out of images and stories of heroism. And true enough, Sendong has brought out the best in all of us as a people. There is still faith in the midst of death and uncertainty, there is still heroism in the face of disaster, and there is still generosity in the time of need even from those who were affected.  God is present and the Filipino spirit is alive in these moments of collective tragedy. 

Let us continue to help and pray for the victims of Sendong.