Editorial: Beyond band-aid relief

Over the span of almost two weeks, a supertyphoon transformed a nation – for better and for worse.

Typhoon Yolanda’s 300 kph winds (The Economist compares this speed to the revving of jumbo jet engines) slammed into the Central Philippines last November 8. The worst hit provinces of Leyte and Eastern Samar – peopled by more than 2.3 million inhabitants – reeled from storm surges as high as 7 meters or 21 feet. As of press time the death toll is trickling towards 4,000 – men, women, fishermen, police, journalists, priests, nuns, military, children. More than 11 million are displaced, homeless, hungry, dejected, desperate, shaking. There is no potable water ready for anyone – unsurprising, given the endemic water shortage and distribution problems existing prior to Yolanda. Stagnant water and poor sanitation are hurting not just the survivors but also relief workers and military aid dispatches.

Worse, political and extralegal forces at the local level are tampering with the supply distribution networks, making the goods delivered count all the more – politically.  Even in the darkest crisis opportunism abounds – stickers of politicians are being tacked to aid packages, and national leaders find avenues to divert the media attention from the local and national management problems in the relief operations.

The longer term effects are starting to sink in. Some survivors were flown into Villamor Airbase last week still trembling, the tragedy still fresh and chillingly real. The systems are not yet set in place and the recuperation plans for any proposed type of normalcy are still pending in the NDRRMC and DILG, given its focus on immediate needs – clearing roads, ensuring smooth access, pacifying a frenzied, starved, unemployed populace. The damage has not yet been fully assessed but with national and foreign support pouring in the authorities plan to “build back for the better.”

Amdist this crisis is a beacon of hope for Lasallians. In the thick of adversity, La Salle schools around the Philippines have engaged in relief drives to assist in the affected areas. Volunteers mobilize at the snap of a finger to assemble family packs by the thousands. The consciousness seems to be sincere, and the aid appears to be genuine. The Brother President has even called off the Christmas Party, instead pledging to donate the funds for the typhoon victims.

But more than aid, relief and disaster response, Lasallians are by their education and privilege expected to best aid the lost and the least by using their talents and their expertise in the reconstruction of destroyed cities, damaged families and develop the systems that people will follow for a smoother preparation. Even where pundits say that no amount of preparation under present circumstances could have allayed the colossal damage, the battle cry should be for mitigation and disaster prevention at the most basic level.

Lasallians, as budding policy developers, planners, engineers, technicians and experts have the greatest opportunity to ensure that more people are saved, less damage done, less lives lost, less costs and less panic and less post-disaster finger-pointing. Lasallians could even at the student level maximize existing University-based capacities to pitch in, more than just being part of the emergency relief drives. Operational system cases could base themselves from the disaster; psychology students could counsel the traumatized victims at Villamor. Thesis outputs could base their fruits on the biggest natural disaster to hit our shores in recent history; student government and professional organizations should be working to create sustainable student-based campaigns to send to the areas and rebuild the communities broken by Yolanda.

This is, after all, a time to look beyond and work together. This is the moment when that cherished value of bayanihan needs to come into play, and kept alive to show that ours is a nation that does not keel and turn on itself in the face of disasters. The Filipino spirit, after all, is stronger than any typhoon.