Filipinos are known for the fact that they can smile despite the hardships in life. We are a nation of resilience. But, have we ever through that, maybe, we smile because that’s all we have?
Our people have been praised for being resilient, ever-happy and even bulletproof. It won’t be a surprised to see at the news videos of people smiling as they made their way through worst-deep flood waters as if it were a day at the beach. Even after a strong typhoon hits, it will only take a day or two for us to start rebuilding our homes from scrape of woods. We don’t wait for help. We help ourselves.
I’m proud that we are joyful people, that we are self sufficient, but there’s a downside to being immure to disasters, we can’t simply be used to worst conditions for surely a typhoon strong enough will come one day and our smile can’t be the only weapon to fight it through. I am disturbed that the reason we help ourselves is because we know nobody might come to help us.
We rush past discomfort and onto acceptance quickly, wanting to turn the negative into a positive. This is a very admirable trait to have. Annoys do not dwell, we simply move on.
We know that we can’t rely on anyone’s promises, especially on the government, so we get by our own, we are so used to it we even stopped asking.
Why can’t we ask why there’s a flood? Why does it happen every single year? How come there haven’t been any structural changes to prevent it from happening again? How about the people who know that the cause of flood is because of their actions? Why can’t we treat Mother Nature better so it won’t throw back disasters as revenge to us?
“Ganyan talaga e. Anong magagawa natin?” When there is a flood, we simply build raft or wrap our legs in plastic bags and go to elevated areas. Instead of solving problems, we simply cope or we wait for the problem to pass.
Change. Let’s not be afraid to make an action that will cause such a huge and great difference in our lives. Let’s be a happy nature of smiles that is also striving to make a change! For us to avoid such disasters from happening again instead of simply waiting for the storm to pass, let’s find a way to have our defense against these disasters. Start helping Mother Nature and maybe the reason next time for our smile is the fact we prevented such disasters from happening, that we have found our way through the dark.
By: Liza Marie S. Magtanong
