THE bayanihan spirit, undoubtedly a trademark among Filipinos who inhabit this Land of the Morning, continues to be a beautiful part of the country’s cultural treasure trove.
This is most conspicuous in times of emergency and tragedy, as witness Typhoon Imbudo, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Harurot a powerful typhoon that struck the Philippines in July 2003, the killer typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng which separately pounded the National Capital Region and surrounding provinces and a large part of northern Luzon in 2009, and Yolanda in 2013.
Only last year, on Oct. 19, Typhoon Lawin intensified into a super typhoon and cut an ugly swathe of destruction in Cagayan and Isabela, which reeled under signal number 5, the highest tropical cyclone warning, and the Cordilleras.
In all the cases, separately, Filipinos from all walks of life held hands and demonstrated a response that allowed the younger generations of Filipinos a glimpse of the kind of heritage that has made the Filipino truly what outsiders have dubbed a cooperative spirit—translated into the Filipino lingo as “bayanihan” or “tagnawa” in most of northern Philippines..
The cooperation among each other, as has been the case in succeeding situations of emergencies and tragedies, continued even as the heavily silted floodwaters started to recede and the weather disturbances had cut an eerie trail of destruction in most parts of the country’s main island of Luzon.
The panoramic picture of such a tragedy jabbed every Filipino and foreign observers in regard to the health situation in the capital’s evacuation centers—with nursing mothers and toddlers fighting the cold and other elements.
At the same time, hills-high heaps of garbage, wet and still stinking along the major and minor streets of the heavily congested metropolis—where 15 million of the 105 million population of the country live—and the suburban skirts, there lurked the possibility that the overcrowded evacuation centers would become breeding grounds for diseases because of the garbage and inadequate amenities in them.
What aggravated the situation—as were the cases in recent years—had been the fact that the water arteries were unduly filled with garbage and plastic materials disposed of by riverside companies and stubborn residents that clog the riverbanks.
Analysts have said that the metropolis, the industrial and educational center of the country, must have the facilities and amenities of a really modern and highly urbanized megapolis.
And, add analysts, there should be stronger political will among local government units to resettle those living on riverbanks who feel, wrongly, that they have an ancestral right to the areas.
According to observers, particularly those watching the climate changes that keep pounding the archipelago, this makes the task in the years ahead certainly gigantic and mind-boggling and the need for cooperation and collaboration of both the government and the private sector.
There is no doubt the government, aware of the problem confronting the metropolis and the urban centers, will take the lead in shifting the gear to higher level to address the perennial problem of flooding and damage during similar situations.
But the government is certain that with the bayanihan spirit well and alive among the population, the task ahead, however seemingly gigantic it appears, will be easier than imagined, according to political observers.
Honor Blanco Cabie is a writer, editor and poet.