People Power to the quick

It has almost been a month since Typhoon Yolanda’s (Haiyan) strong and unprecedented belch spewed over the central islands of the Philippine archipelago. Having invested presence and energy in the affected area two decades ago, I was quick to develop empathy to the aftermath’s innocent suffering, but disciplined enough to distance myself emotionally from the disaster. Visibly, whatever tangible accomplishments we might have contributed before were wiped out, but I was confident that the human spirit we shared with folks stayed around longer.

It is People Power II, not in protest against the likes of a Ferdinand Marcos or a seemingly uncomfortable President Benigno Noynoy Aquino, but in the building of something new from the old, now obliterated for good. That is the unmistakable lesson we hear from friends and associates in the region who have buckled up and rolled up their sleeves to proceed with the building process.

I am reminded of the time I was a resident community worker in the village of Sudtonggan, Basak, Lapu-Lapu City on Mactan Island in Cebu Province, a project demonstration site. While my wife and I were facilitating a community replication consult at the other end of the island, our staff residence in the middle of the coral-limestone studded village burned down.

There were no fatal casualties but our two daughters, along with children of other staff members, ran out into safety practically naked since sleeping in the tropical humid atmosphere did not require pajamas or much of anything else. I recall a couple of village homes taking their children’s Sunday clothes, offering them for our children’s use. I lost two items of commercial value: an Italian handmade pair of comfortable loafers, and an old Cartier watch, gifts from a previous lifestyle.

What a liberating incident the conflagration was, for not only did I no longer had to worry about the meager wealth I owned, I was also a grateful recipient of the care and compassion of those I had come to serve and labor with. Suddenly our roles were reversed. It was at once a humbling and freedom-boosting occasion.

Something of this nature occupied my mind as I got news from colleagues across the Visayas, and as reports from the devastated areas began to filter out into the world’s press. I have grown rather confident through the years in the resiliency of the world-wise street-smart Pinoy with whom I identify with, along with many Filipinos in diaspora around the world from whose ranks some emerged, and I was seeing the traits of practical realism on display in the ruins of Tacloban.

Consider China’s rude awakening from the viciousness of international media attack over what was considered a paltry contribution to humanitarian aid (at the time China herself suffered the onslaught of Haiyan in its southern flank), particularly from American news services and their international outlets.

China’s response requires no defense. I am an American of Philippine descent teaching English in China’s northeast in Manchuria so I bridge the three countries involved. To help understand contemporary China, I was in Ya-an in Sichuan this summer where a 2008 quake devastated the area, eliciting an outpouring of worldwide aid, but the replay in 2012 had the locals saying, “Thanks, but no, thanks” to offers of financial aid from the international community. They resolved to rebuild their communities from the ground up themselves with national assistance. Not without blemish, we note. Internal fundraising included fake claims and luxuriant expenditures from those who heeded their greed at the expense of a needful mass.

When a Pinay in Leyte-Samar was asked what she thought of China’s meager relief response, she said, “Oh, we do not think in terms of how much; to anything offered, we say, salamat [thank you].” The first Chinese volunteers who landed to deliver aid heard typhoon victims egging them on with the Zhongwen “kuai, kuai, kuai” (quick, quick, quick) to get them where they were needed.

Quietly, but quickly, a flotilla of 50 U.S. naval vessels and more than 10,000 personnel delivered relief food and water by sea, land, and air. A critic of military imperial presence and pretensions in the region, I genuinely doff my hat to the organized grunts and fliers who delivered needed goods. We can get our drone technology to serve weather forecasting, and military discipline to organize humanitarian efforts, and I reserve the option to execute my ROTC hand salute each time I see Old Glory flying over military equipment and personnel!

Pinoy People Power is a phenomenon around the world, aped in the gathered crowd of Arab Spring to even the clashing but dancing Red and Yellow Thais who leave on their own volition after occupying public buildings.

People Power in the reconstruction of a new Samar-Leyte (the resort island of Guiuan, Eastern Samar is already high profile) is the Pinoy’s agenda, harnessing the native powers of balikatan and bayanihan, forgiving but managing the rapacious propertied class and the opportunistic looters, toward a resilient and creative Pinoylandia! And do so, in the new but now widely used term in a normally laidback land: kuai, kuai, kuai!