We keep actions in the attics, to see the cameras in the sky…
How many times will this endless and entirely unnecessary cycle continue? Every year, with a regularity clockwork would envy, we face the coming storm, the permanently coming storm, storms that we have no business being caught off guard by.
It’s a tropical country in the middle of the ocean where storms form—we’ve known this as a fact of life for as long as we have existed on this land. Our ancestors and their ancestors and their ancestors have grappled with this forever, and as we have advanced through time and the timeline of progress, we should be better and better equipped to face these storms, and yet! And yet!
As regularly as the annual storms that reach our shores, the government will, at large, say that nothing could have been done, wala tayo magagawa (there are outliers), and people will suffer death and injury and the loss of their homes and livelihoods, only to be given a comparative pittance of “aid” to recover in front of dozens of cameras.
Why prevent catastrophe, if you can make a killing in free advertising by showing up after everything is done and by handing over a few sacks of cheap rice?
It boils the blood, honestly—it does! What is the point of being in the highest seats in all the land if your response to your countrymen, the people you are supposed to SERVE—is that there is nothing you can do? If there is nothing you can do, why are you in that seat?
Can nobody save us? Will anyone try?
The pyre is burning, the severance is dying, and all along they say—help is on the way!
Every year, without fail, we are failed by those above us. How are we supposed to be safe from disaster when the only preparation is for response, under the assumption that we will be hurt?
The forests and mountains that protect us, the groves, the natural shields that we were blessed to have—where have they gone? Their destruction was not forestalled with all the powers wielded by the powers that be—hastened, even.
Where are the flood mitigation projects, the replenishing of our green cover, the pre-emptive measures, not the curative relief—you cannot cure what has been destroyed!
And like clockwork, the suffering is spun into tales of inspiration; who cares if hundreds and hundreds of lives are destroyed—they survived! How resilient, how inspirational!
When is enough enough? Surely there has to be a breaking point before we ourselves break in half; it’s only going to get worse at this rate with the way the climate is going up in flames. The billionaires won’t save us, the trapos won’t save us.
Maybe it’s time to think of who will. And if they do not exist, then make them real.