The best and the worst

The worst of times has a way of bringing out the best in people.

Natural calamities – especially one as devastating as ‘Cosme’ was – particularly compel humankind into extending their utmost generosity.

And we see exactly that in the influx of donations, both financial and in kind, for the victims here in Pangasinan from various sectors: public officials, business groups, civic organizations, and even ordinary citizens.

It is mind-boggling, however, how the President, who even paid a personal visit to the province in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, could not afford to spare any fund from the national coffers to help in the rehabilitation work. If not from her own heart’s goodness, couldn’t the bureaucracy act with dispatch to see to the immediate release of a fund based on a presidential promise to help? Couldn’t the funding for certain projects in other regions outlined in the 2008 budget, be diverted for the more pressing and significant needs of the Pangasinenses? (We recall that this was resorted to by then President Fidel V. Ramos when he diverted funds intended for Pangasinan to Mindanao whose needs were more pressing and urgent).

Questions are begging to be answered. And people, especially those from the poor municipalities heavily hit by Cosme’s fury, are crying out for help. The emotional plea of the mayor of Infanta for his town says it all for thousands left homeless.

Nonetheless, resilient Filipinos that we are, we can try to see the bright side of such dark realities.

Left to fend for ourselves, perhaps now is the best time as any to begin shedding bits of our dole-out mentality. Our provincial, city, municipal and barangay leaders are challenged to find ways to maximize the authority they hold as laid out in the Local Government Code, which was in fact intended to empower officials at the frontline. With the release of local calamity funds, meager as some are, our public servants must show political will and integrity to ensure that the money goes where it is truly and most urgently needed. Judgment comes in 2010. The people in the community, as they have already been showing, must keep the age-old bayanihan spirit that burns in the Filipino soul.

Nature has put us to a major test. Our national leaders have practically abandoned us. We now have only one another to rely on.

How we will rise from this setback, which is estimated to have pushed the province back by many years in terms of economic development efforts, will only prove how strong in character we truly are as a people.

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