Think about it
We need to prepare for future Sendongs
By Jun Velasco
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son and that whoever believes in Him shall not perish and have an everlasting life.”– John 3:16.
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THANK God, we’ve been spared this time.
Brod Butch and Governor Spines’ special assistant Monching Morden were in Iligan while we wrote this column.
They were to deliver some P2 million as the province’s rush aid to our brothers and sisters who bore the brunt of Typhoon Sendong in Mindanao.
In Pangasinan, that name should have meant panacea or balm knowing the many things businessman and philanthropist Sendong So has been doing for the pain-afflicted hereabouts.
Because of “Sendong”, the flood-bearing typhoon, the country is back to prostrate form. Our sorry image is all over the world, which caught no less than President Obama’s pity. We had it last year — no thanks to Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng — and many times before.
Pundits, as usual, are back to delivering the sermons and homilies against almost everyone they could lay their eyes and mouths on forgetting that they, too, are part of the vicious cycle
What we see is a clownish repetition of what we’ve been getting every time a calamity strikes.
We never learn? No, not exactly, we do learn, but the hoi poloi are just helpless against a system that has created the incurable cancer.
We in Luzon could only shake our heads and express gratitude we’ve been spared “for now.”
Don’t get us wrong. We’re not saying we want another “Sendong” in the shadows. No, a BIG NO to that.
But why not swivel your eyes to many parts of the world which have been devastated by earthquakes, typhoons, floods and other destructive furies of Mother Nature? And they are c happening one after the other in dreadful and frightening ways!
We can philosophize about these things, that these are quirks of nature, but by gum, they are terrible and horrific occurrences causing countless deaths and destructions and coming nonstop; you need only to listen to the victims’ tales of woe. Like that mother and daughter in Iligan who the night before were talking about the nicest gifts to buy for the family. The mother almost lost her mind when she saw her daughter the next day swallowed up by the flood.
Oh, there are other heart-wrenching, horrific stories that would make you cry. Are we crying for the victims? Or the nightmarish thought that any day we, too, could suffer the same.
These are the times when like in our boy scout’s “be prepared” motto, we really have to take stock of our temporal lives and make a deeper foray into God’s words to guide our understanding of the startling events in our lives these days.
But in a larger sense, it is precisely in these appointed places and times where we should find meaningful and genuine comfort.
Yes, especially these days.
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NOTES: Congratulations to our friend Ben Navarro, proprietor of Mhel Ben, who was given a clean bill of health by the LTFRB which just exposed most of the giant buses fielding colorum buses on the road. Although saddled with built-in problems affecting small fleets plying the provincial roads, Ben has used creative imagination, pragmatic management and good public relations that have enabled him to hurdle the rough times with modest success. While others have fallen by the wayside due to stiff competition and other known problems to the industry, Mhel Ben has remained unscathed serving the provincial route in Pangasinan…….
We are looking forward to Mayor Benjie Lim’s effort to make Dagupan not only as a major fishing destination, but as a hub of excellent food in northern Luzon. He reveals a plan to raise organic swine which feeds on plants and organic food which won’t have obnoxious fecal waste and makes an ideal backyard cottage industry.
Welcome the birth of the Babe. It’s our greatest source of strength and our very life.
Merry Christmas!
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