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Christmas After Typhoon Reming
I think you will agree with me: this Christmas shall probably be remembered as the Christmas that followed Typhoon Reming. This was the Christmas that could not be postponed – the Christmas where there were fewer gifts under the Christmas tree, if any, and where there was less on the Noche Buena table. Let’s face it, after the storm, despite the declarations of the DTI, things have become more expensive, and the Christmas season hasn’t helped keep the prices down. Though we might wish to force the typhoon out of our personal and collective memories, how do we do that when last Nov. 30th it slammed into our lives with 265-kmh winds, flattened houses of light materials, tore roofs off stronger houses, shattered windows, crumpled iron and steel, forced down electrical posts with all their heavy wiring, lifted, twisted, tortured trees till they were dismembered, denuded or totally blown away? In Naga, 2980 houses were totally destroyed; 5775 others were damaged. The electricity stopped, the radios died, the cables were zapped. We sustained heavy damage here at the Ateneo; Reming blew the roof off the Santos building, ripped doors of this Church apart and blew them away; she did not even spare our sacred stained-glass Windows of the King. The damage at the Universidad de Sta. Isabel was thrice heavier, and Hope Christian was short of blown away. But we will remember Reming as the typhoon that transformed the placid, lovely, beloved Daragang Magayon into a helpless, lumbering, unwilling monster-killer, tearfully disgorging her mud and boulders onto sixteen villages of Daraga, Sto. Domngo, Guinobatan, Tabaco and Legaspi, sweeping hapless residents into the sea, and burying homes, schools and churches with their human communities in stunned darkness and death. The horror shocked us – as it touched us. We know these communities. Many of us are from there. Many of us remember… what is now no more. In Albay: 580 dead, 746 missing, 1933 injured. When I called Fr. Ramonclaro Mendez of Aquinas University after the storm, he was bewildered. He was not yet putting the pieces of his devastated university back together; he was still finding dead bodies swept onto his campus – and taking care of their burial. In stunned silence, we know it could have been us. If people so close to us, with faces familiar, were killed, we know it could have been us buried or swept into the sea. How fragile this life, we realize! How tenuous our hold on it! How death does come, as the Lord warned, like a thief in the night! How easy life can be snuffed out, like the dancing flame of a candle, suddenly but dark smoke on a blackened wick. But in the same silence, we are awed by the fact that it wasn’t us, that we are still alive, that our flame still dances, and our light still shines. In this silence, even if we’d lost our roofs, or lost our houses, or lost our livelihood, we are gratified still to be alive. It is good to know we can still use our hands to work, our legs to walk, our eyes to see, our head to think, our arms to embrace. We know how precious life is… Precious, profoundly so! It is for this reason that for many of us it has not been easy to get into the Christmas mood. Possibly because the Christmas mood is often so superficial, so shallow, so phoney, driven greatly by self-interested gods of commerce and profit-hungry moguls of mass media. At a time when we have been reminded by Remng of the preciousness of our fragile lives, this is not a time for worrying about letson or ham, not even about a new shirt or pair of jeans. In this season, sitting with a plastic Santa Claus under canopy of lights appears singularly indecent. Life is more precious than toys and trinkets, and to give even children the conviction that on Christmas a plastic Santa will fulfill their wishes is to betray the meaning of Christmas. It is not Santa Claus who fulfills the great desires of the human being… The season has rather been a season for helping others – especially those who have been affected by Typhoon Reming. The university Christmas party was cancelled in order to use the money for typhoon victims. So too, the Ateneo de Davao Grade School Christmas party. Among the first to send relief was far-away Ateneo de Zamboanga. The university choir mobilized to sing in prayer to help. In Manila, Bro Javi Alpasa mobilized the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan to funnel help to us and to Albay. In New York, friends and strangers who had seen our website began sending in money through Philjesuit. In Germany, Karola Heck mobilized her Gymnasium to partner with us in helping the victims. In Munich, friends of Kristong Hari Foundation have begun sending over relief. In Austria, Fr. Georg Fischer, has remitted money. All of these, even without our asking for help! So many people undertook some project, thank God, not only with money. Many gave in kind. Many send medicines, food, and much needed clothing. Many contributed by repacking goods or by distributing them. Some gave of their personal expertise. The Ateneo contingent of psychologists who went to Albay to do crisis debriefing especially with Aquinas University personnel was profoundly appreciated. Many give of their personal labor. Groups of Ateneo faculty, administrators, students and student organizations banded together with Bahay Atenenista in order to re-build the houses of those in our community who had lost them completely to Typhoon Reming. I was privileged to be part of this, to do my little share, to be caught up in the energy and dynamic, skill and power, laughter and joy of youth giving themselves concretely to help others in need – why? – because of an impelling bond with these others, a bond of humanity shared and treasured, a bond that endures and prevails and triumphs even over the 265-kmp winds of Typhoon Reming. One of the beneficiaries of this bahay ateneista project was Migs de los Santos, one of the university’s much-loved janitors who works day and night to support his family of nine children. As wind and rain punished their home and began tearing away at its parts, Migs feared for the lives of his wife and children as well as his own. Before his house was completely destroyed, he saw the tree on which he was wont to mount his Christmas star bent over in the wind. He made a resolution. He promised that if he and his family would survive the typhoon, the first thing he would do would be to mount a star on the tree. He believed the star would make it easier for God to find their family and help them. Migs and his family survived, even if their house did not. So as he promised, he put his star atop his wishing tree with a prayer that God find them in their need. Later, he said that it was not God who found them, but the Three Kings. Their names though were not Gaspar, Melchior and Baltazar but Nono Sto. Domingo, Larry Sucatre and Leo Borras. Their good news to Migs was that the Bahay Atenista volunteers would re-build his home. He was overwhelmed with joy as he realized on the 18 of December the angels (all volunteers) would come to build his house. They did. Not only did the angels sing “Glory to God in the highest”, they worked hard – clearing the site, hauling gravel, mixing cement, laying hollow blocks, raising a roof. Through the star, the Lord and his volunteers did find Migs. He became one with Migs in need, as he was one with the volunteers responding to Migs’ need. He was humanity in need, and humanity freely responding to Migs’ need. What more beautiful expression of the meaning of Christmas can there be? At Christmas, the Word becomes flesh and from within declares our humanity infinitely valuable and infinitely sacred – worth working for, worth building for, worth dying for. At Christmas, God becomes one with us in our need. At Christmas God is one of us responding to human need. We shall remember this Christmas as the Christmas that followed Typhoon Reming. We shall remember our sadness after the storm, but also our privileged joy. We know: God has visited his people. God has been with us. Through the many people who helped their fellow human beings, Christmas was not postponed: “The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light; on those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shone. You have made their gladness greater, you have made their joy increase; they rejoice in your presence…” (Is: 9:1-2). May your Christmas be blessed, and may you all be filled with his joy as Jesus is born “Emmanuel” – God with us.
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© 2003 Philippine Jesuit Foundation |
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