Surprised

One can suppose with the benefit of hindsight that there must be more than a bit of irony in the progression of events. When Typhoon Ruby (international name, Hagupit) entered the Philippine area of responsibility in early December of last year, the locals in Lianga and its surrounding communities rushed out in a frenzy of activity all of which was supposed to be in preparation for what was forecasted to be a major storm. The memories of the devastation left by 2013's Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and 2012's Pablo (Bopha), after all, remains painfully fresh in the minds of all Filipinos here.

Then Ruby did not quite live up to its hype (although it did cause extensive damage and did claim at least 18 lives) and so when PAGASA, the national weather service, announced that a tropical depression was following on Ruby's wake and will make landfall in Surigao del Sur on Dec. 28, the response to what would later develop into Tropical Storm Seniang (international name, Jangmi) was understandably tepid to say the least. Everyone thought it was just going to another one of those run-of-the-mill weather hiccups common this time of the year in this part of the world.

It turned out that Seniang struck hard where Ruby veered away and this part of the country as well as many other areas in the Visayas and Mindanao got clobbered hard. Hundreds of thousands of people ended up paying dearly for their complacency. "We all prepared for Ruby," one survivor in Cebu province in the Visayas tearfully lamented, "but no one warned us about Seniang."

Pining For Home

Like many netizens all over the world, I am not particularly trustful of or comfortable with Google, that global internet presence which, whether we like it or not, insidiously intrudes into and then profits from almost everything we do in the online world. Its multinational hugeness and its pervasive dominance in all things related to cyberspace worries a lot of concerned individuals even those who regularly use its many services and who benefit from them in the personal or economic sense or both.

Yet occasionally, this internet colossus comes out with something that manages to surprise us all. Something that in this selfish, money-centered and cynical world (of which Google is, whether deservedly or undeservedly, in the eyes of many, a personification of) somehow pulls and tugs at that emotional core that hides in all of us, something that whispers and resonates to that softer side of our human nature, something that affirms that universally held hope that even in this selfish and cynical world, there is a premium still for love, friendship, generosity, loyalty and all those other pure, virtuous and noble sentiments of the human heart.

Last Dec. 14, Google Philippines published a video on You Tube that has been viewed and shared by more than a million people to date. Titled "Miss Nothing", it is basically a tribute to the more than two million Filipino overseas workers abroad who have left their families and homeland behind in order to work for a living all over the world. In less than two minutes it emotionally paints through images and music their loneliness and sense of isolation and how through the magic of modern wireless digital communication they desperately struggle to keep their tenuous links to their loved ones back home alive and meaningful.

Unfinished Business

Nothing irritates and distresses me more intellectually and emotionally than fellow Filipinos who should be old enough to know better and should be well-informed enough to understand clearly but who are quick to say to my face that the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution was a failed revolution because the ideals, principles and objectives it had fought for remains unfulfilled and unrealized 28 years hence.

I can be considerate of those who are too young to have been discerning witnesses if not actual participants in the crucial events of those historic few days in February of 1986 and have not bothered to really familiarize themselves with unbiased and accurate accounts of what was clearly one of the most important defining events in the recent history of this country. It is often all too easy to dismiss or, even worse, actually belittle and consider insignificant something that one does not truly understand or know enough about.

I can also disregard the fence-sitters who, 28 years ago, never did commit themselves and merely waited to see which side would prevail in the end and only then loudly proclaim themselves to be wholly, in body and spirit, to have been with the winning side from the very beginning. They did not matter three decades ago and sadly, despite their noisy protestations, still remain irrelevant to this very day.

Finally, I can discount the die hard apologists for the Marcos dictatorship who even nowadays still cling to their delusion that the more than two decades of Apo Ferdinand's authoritarian rule was the best thing that ever happened to this country, the very same people who still desperately peddle like inveterate hucksters their own revised and doctored version of the events leading to EDSA uprising. As far as they are concerned the so called Yellow Revolution will always be just an ill-advised coup d'état, a disastrous putsch that really changed and achieved nothing except unjustly removing from power the one man they all worship as the greatest leader in Philippine history.

The Pindang Revisited

I was among the more fortunate to have had the opportunity to sample a sinfully diverse selection from the cornucopia of festive culinary delights traditionally offered by most Filipinos to family members, relatives and friends for copious, if not gluttonous, consumption during the recent Christmas and New Year celebrations. That meant mouthfuls of the ever ubiquitous ham (of several kinds), repeated generous servings of pasta thick with sauces of both the red and white varieties including one or two others of an indeterminate shade in between these two extremes, countless portions of chicken thighs and wings both roasted or fried in batter and slices of fish either grilled, steamed or stewed with fresh veggies in the traditional way.

I have not even included in the first list list the obligatory chocolate and cheese cakes, whole wheat bread loaves with raisins, chocolate doughnuts, bibingkang kanin (rice cakes topped with caramelized coconut cream), empanadas (pastry stuffed with meat, vegetables and egg slices) and a multitude of other desserts and side dishes. The often excessive enthusiasm and unusual profligacy even normally frugal Filipino families put into preparing for the orgies of feasting during the Yuletide and year-ender festivities never ceases to amaze me.

Christmas Tree

It has been reported in the American news media the past week or so that an elementary school in Frisco, Texas in the United States has banned the use of Christmas trees within its premises and has also forbidden students to use the colors red and green in its annual winter party.  The principal of the school explained that the the local Board of Education is enforcing the policy that "no religious belief or non-belief shall be promoted by the district and its employees" and that the school "didn't want to offend any families and since each family donates money (to the party), (it) feels that this is the best policy."

The ban surprisingly came just after Texas Governor Rick Perry signed recently into law the so called Merry Christmas Bill which essentially allows students and school staff to freely discuss and celebrate holidays as they please. Many parents and concerned Texas residents have been outraged and have angrily spoken up to condemn what they felt was political correctness carried to the extreme by the administrative staff of the Nichols Elementary School .

In Lianga like everywhere else in the Philippines and in most Christian nations all over the world, nothing else epitomizes and symbolizes the Yuletide season than the ubiquitous Christmas tree. In this town, it is even a more common component of the traditional Christmas dressing-up of homes than the more indigenous Filipino parol (Christmas star) or belen (nativity crèche or tableau), a fact that quickly is obvious to someone who takes the time to go around and visit the houses of relatives, friends and acquaintances here this Yuletide season.

Dying Beautifully

Seventeen years ago my father died peacefully in his sleep and in the manner he always said he wanted  to leave this world - without fuss, without unnecessary pain and without subjecting his family to the rigors and demands of a death coming only after a protracted and prolonged bout with some dreaded and debilitating disease.

He had lived a rich and full life, most of it lived in the service of others. He had been a physician and healer for most of his life, a rare artist with the surgeon's knife, a tool which he wielded with such consummate skill and panache that stories of the many medical miracles he had wrought in the operating room in his time are still being told and even embellished to this day among old-timers here in Lianga.

When he went to sleep on that night many many years ago and did not wake up at dawn as he normally did for the most of his life, he was already a much loved and respected man in this town. In death, lying serenely in bed with the bed covers unrumpled and with nary a trace of discomfort on his face, he was the picture of a man who had left life with no regrets and with no hint of bitterness or ambivalence. It was the way he always wanted to go, quietly and quickly.

It has often been taken as an article of the wisdom of the ancients that a man reaps what he sows.  Thus it is a sure consequence of divine justice for a man to pass on to the next world in a way that is commensurate with the manner in which he had lived his life. Bloodthirsty warmongers and merciless killers of men are believed to be fated to end their lives just as violently and in the same sickeningly bloody fashion with which they gleefully dispatched from life their helpless victims.