The year 2006
EVERY ONE of us has moments that we can do without. Moments we wish we could skip and delete, not because we regret having them but because, big picture or not, they just don't make sense. These are the moments that are so grotesquely out of place that we spend a lifetime looking back at them.
For me that moment, the time I wish I never had to go through, was 2006. Many others would share this sentiment with me, especially those from the place I come from, Bicol. For us, there's only one way to remember 2006. It starts at the end and goes back to the beginning when fireworks lighted the sky and 2006 was just a promise waiting to be broken.
December. Much of Albay is in darkness, a fitting and symbolic end to the year. The few fireworks are just a spark in the darkness that engulfs the place, the lone silver lining behind a massive amount of dark clouds. While the rest of the world offers their prayers and sympathies, how much of their charity will trickle down to the victims? A million dollars of charity or unused pork-barrel funds will find their way slowly through layers and layers of thick-skinned politicians until all that's left for the victims are a few relief goods and some measly cash that will last for a week or maybe a month at most. Once the cameras shift to the next crisis, the politicians will be there and it will be up to the victims themselves to restore what has been washed away.
You can't expect much from the members of the House of Representatives because they live in a world of their own. They don't represent their constituents; they are more interested in pushing and rushing a parliamentary form of government. They're pushing for Charter change because it's the only way they can have their pork and eat it, too. If only they would listen to the voice of the people and stop being schizophrenic, they would hear that it's not the presidential system they want abolished, it's the trapos in Congress that they want to do away with. How ironic that in this season when God humbly became man, they're doing everything to become gods--pork-bellied gods.
November. On the last day of November, I called home after getting a frantic text pleading with me to pray, pray, pray. Apparently, our house was flooded, its window glasses shattered, and everything wet and damaged. Some parts of the roof had been ripped off. On a clear night, my family can count the stars; on a rainy day, they get free baths.
My cousin's house became a flying house although it never got as far as Oz. My aunts stayed inside their wardrobe, hoping they would find Narnia at the other side. Mango trees, pili trees, coconut trees, bamboos and anything that once stood erect were laid low by "Reming" (international codename: Durian). The dike, a few hundred meters behind our compound, broke. Everything that was not on high ground was washed away by rocks, mud and water.
When the storm abated, everything was down or gone, including electric posts, wires, refrigerators and entire living rooms--claimed either by the storm or the flood or by robbers who took what was left of your house.
We have finally become the country's most depressed--and depressing--region. Who would have thought that the tourist attraction that is the Cagsawa Ruins could be ruined again? That's like burying dead bodies with dead bodies.
There were 400, 500 or 1,000 dead (the reports vary) but the glaring truth remains that lives have been lost and maybe millions of other lives have been eternally altered. One can estimate the damage wrought by the supertyphoon in economic terms, but a father lost, a breadwinner washed away, a suddenly-orphaned girl send shock waves well into the future when all this has just become a grim memory.
September. After two months in my new job, I went back to Bicol, not to unwind but to sort things out. That same month, my only brother Bryan would have turned 18. I gathered some of his playmates and some relatives, bought a cake and some pasta, and waited for him. He never came.
July. One day before I reported for work, my mother's youngest sister stormed our house, hurling stones, wooden planks and leaves and proclaiming she had the rightful claim to all my parents' properties because she's the favorite sister and I was just a kid. I would have brought her to court, if only I wasn't in Manila and I had the funds. But four months of being unemployed, independent, and being on my own, left me with no more piggy banks to smash.
May. I was at the airport seeing my parents off. They were leaving for the United States and I was being left to deal with the eccentricities of a menopausal, middle-aged relative with the emotional quotient of a four-year-old brat.
March. My Dad was supposed to come home for good from Saudi Arabia on the 8th. He rushed home a few days earlier. I was supposed to have dinner with friends before they flew to Saudi, but instead they were with me, too stunned to say anything that could comfort me. Bryan was supposed to hear Ash Wednesday Mass, instead he was lying a few feet away from me inside a coffin. Enough said.
January. Bryan and I watched the fireworks display outside our house as 2006 ticked in. The fireworks gloriously lighted the clear midnight sky. We went back inside our house with my Mom and some relatives, took pictures, ate and laughed the night away. Tomorrow's a new day and everything's going to be all right.
They year 2006 looked promising until tragedy struck, everybody left, and one storm came after another. To say I have survived is to hide the reality that I have lost almost everything. I have grown tired of hearing that such things happen for a reason. I don't have too much faith on a strength I don't possess. Indeed, what doesn't kill you makes you cynical.
Here's looking forward to 2007, and its promises and disappointing returns.
Published January 2, 2007. Philippine Daily Inquirer, Youngblood
For me that moment, the time I wish I never had to go through, was 2006. Many others would share this sentiment with me, especially those from the place I come from, Bicol. For us, there's only one way to remember 2006. It starts at the end and goes back to the beginning when fireworks lighted the sky and 2006 was just a promise waiting to be broken.
December. Much of Albay is in darkness, a fitting and symbolic end to the year. The few fireworks are just a spark in the darkness that engulfs the place, the lone silver lining behind a massive amount of dark clouds. While the rest of the world offers their prayers and sympathies, how much of their charity will trickle down to the victims? A million dollars of charity or unused pork-barrel funds will find their way slowly through layers and layers of thick-skinned politicians until all that's left for the victims are a few relief goods and some measly cash that will last for a week or maybe a month at most. Once the cameras shift to the next crisis, the politicians will be there and it will be up to the victims themselves to restore what has been washed away.
You can't expect much from the members of the House of Representatives because they live in a world of their own. They don't represent their constituents; they are more interested in pushing and rushing a parliamentary form of government. They're pushing for Charter change because it's the only way they can have their pork and eat it, too. If only they would listen to the voice of the people and stop being schizophrenic, they would hear that it's not the presidential system they want abolished, it's the trapos in Congress that they want to do away with. How ironic that in this season when God humbly became man, they're doing everything to become gods--pork-bellied gods.
November. On the last day of November, I called home after getting a frantic text pleading with me to pray, pray, pray. Apparently, our house was flooded, its window glasses shattered, and everything wet and damaged. Some parts of the roof had been ripped off. On a clear night, my family can count the stars; on a rainy day, they get free baths.
My cousin's house became a flying house although it never got as far as Oz. My aunts stayed inside their wardrobe, hoping they would find Narnia at the other side. Mango trees, pili trees, coconut trees, bamboos and anything that once stood erect were laid low by "Reming" (international codename: Durian). The dike, a few hundred meters behind our compound, broke. Everything that was not on high ground was washed away by rocks, mud and water.
When the storm abated, everything was down or gone, including electric posts, wires, refrigerators and entire living rooms--claimed either by the storm or the flood or by robbers who took what was left of your house.
We have finally become the country's most depressed--and depressing--region. Who would have thought that the tourist attraction that is the Cagsawa Ruins could be ruined again? That's like burying dead bodies with dead bodies.
There were 400, 500 or 1,000 dead (the reports vary) but the glaring truth remains that lives have been lost and maybe millions of other lives have been eternally altered. One can estimate the damage wrought by the supertyphoon in economic terms, but a father lost, a breadwinner washed away, a suddenly-orphaned girl send shock waves well into the future when all this has just become a grim memory.
September. After two months in my new job, I went back to Bicol, not to unwind but to sort things out. That same month, my only brother Bryan would have turned 18. I gathered some of his playmates and some relatives, bought a cake and some pasta, and waited for him. He never came.
July. One day before I reported for work, my mother's youngest sister stormed our house, hurling stones, wooden planks and leaves and proclaiming she had the rightful claim to all my parents' properties because she's the favorite sister and I was just a kid. I would have brought her to court, if only I wasn't in Manila and I had the funds. But four months of being unemployed, independent, and being on my own, left me with no more piggy banks to smash.
May. I was at the airport seeing my parents off. They were leaving for the United States and I was being left to deal with the eccentricities of a menopausal, middle-aged relative with the emotional quotient of a four-year-old brat.
March. My Dad was supposed to come home for good from Saudi Arabia on the 8th. He rushed home a few days earlier. I was supposed to have dinner with friends before they flew to Saudi, but instead they were with me, too stunned to say anything that could comfort me. Bryan was supposed to hear Ash Wednesday Mass, instead he was lying a few feet away from me inside a coffin. Enough said.
January. Bryan and I watched the fireworks display outside our house as 2006 ticked in. The fireworks gloriously lighted the clear midnight sky. We went back inside our house with my Mom and some relatives, took pictures, ate and laughed the night away. Tomorrow's a new day and everything's going to be all right.
They year 2006 looked promising until tragedy struck, everybody left, and one storm came after another. To say I have survived is to hide the reality that I have lost almost everything. I have grown tired of hearing that such things happen for a reason. I don't have too much faith on a strength I don't possess. Indeed, what doesn't kill you makes you cynical.
Here's looking forward to 2007, and its promises and disappointing returns.
Published January 2, 2007. Philippine Daily Inquirer, Youngblood
posted by Chris Daniel at 3:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home