WHAT an eventful week we’ve just had!
I write this on a Friday, just as Baguio is still staggering to get back up on its feet after suffering the effects of Super Typhoon Egay. While power has been restored to most of the city, there are still quite a few areas that are still in the dark, government offices are still open only for essential services and while many of the obstructions like fallen trees and landslides have been cleared, there is still much cleanup left to be done. Just looking at the many pictures posted online, this last storm was easily the biggest that hit since the one that caused the Ucab landslide in Itogon a few years back. There were fewer casualties this time, with only the tragic death of a Grade 10 student from Kitma being reported but the damage in properties did seem significant with stories of cars being buried by landslides and many homes (including my own) dealing with damage from the deluge.
It was a nerve-wracking but proud moment for me as a parent. I was down in Manila when the storm struck and my son was left alone at our apartment, calmly handling a major leak at home caused by clogged balcony drains while taking care of and feeding himself and the cat. Thankfully he stayed mostly warm and dry with enough food and access to electricity and the internet every few hours. There’s nothing like handling a minor emergency on their own to give a teenager a boost in maturity. I am more proud of myself for not panicking and just letting him do his thing.
While Egay and its aftermath certainly hog the spotlight, certainly for many of us in the north because of its direct effect on our lives, it’s so easy to forget that there were quite a few important events too just in the last five days.
Sports fans were delighted with the victory of our women’s football team the Filipinas over host New Zealand at the World Cup. That our team made it all the way to the World Cup was significant enough but walking away with a hard-fought victory against the home team which looked to be more talented on the field made it so much sweeter. This week also saw the Philippine Blu Girls have a strong showing at the Softball World Cup before eventually bowing out. All of this happened nearly two years to the day since Hidilyn Diaz won the first Olympic Gold Medal for the Philippines on July 26, 2021. So much achievement for Filipina women in sports over such a short period of time and it makes me ask the question – are we better off investing in our women athletes in international competition rather than our men? Certainly, they have the results to prove it and have shown that they can do so much more with much less funding. Think about how much money has been spent on our Gilas and Azkals teams over the past decade and how they have not achieved the levels of success our women athletes attained in just the last week.
Finally, did everyone conveniently just forget that there was a little thing called the State of the Nation Address by the President of the Republic of the Philippines just this past Monday? With another gaudy display of misguided pageantry by the members of Congress, the best thing that I have heard said about the event was that it started on time, didn’t stretch into pointless meandering like his immediate predecessor was famous for and was delivered with coherence and clarity.
However, with the President’s claims of prices already coming down and his trotting out of data that seemed to lack proper context, it seems nothing he said just last Monday took hold and is worth remembering even just after a few days. In the end, while the President is at least no longer embarrassing in terms of demeanor and delivery, neither does he seem to be inspiring or even worth remembering even after just a few days of delivering what is traditionally the most important annual speech of a head of state.
*****
On a personal note, I was diagnosed with mild Bell’s palsy about a month ago. It’s a condition believed to be caused by a virus and results in the inability to move one side of the face resulting in facial asymmetry – tabingi ang mukha! Thankfully it can be cured in time. I’ve been vocal about how my recovery has been going from this condition on social media for the following reasons:
- To process my own thoughts on vulnerability and sickness.
- To embrace the changes it is making on me, even if I know it will mostly be temporary. I don’t want it to discourage me from smiling and showing my face.
- To let people know what it’s like and to encourage them to take action if they have similar symptoms. I didn’t even know before this that a neurologist was the proper doctor to see.
- To allow others to keep me encouraged while going through this sensitive time.
- To keep laughing through all this. I have gone through many challenges in my life and yes laughing at the challenges and having fun with them not as a distraction but as a way of befriending trouble works for me.
I have been through a few weeks of treatment via steroids and some of the symptoms have abated, or maybe I am just getting used to seeing my face in a different way.