Darkest before dawn

“Your parents asked me to call you to let you know that they are alive and well” – British Correspondent

“Pastor Eugene and Ruth are safe” – Leyte traveller

“They broke into Lola’s house and stole many things.” “There is so much looting.” – Tacloban housewife

“Why is P-Noy blaming us for our misery?” – Student from Tacloban

“Why are they taking so long to declare martial Law?” – Tacloban businessman

“Mayor Alfred and Kring and the kids are alive but they lost everything. They only have the clothes on their back.” – Tacloban Church worker

“People are mobbing the Red Cross truck outside Tacloban City.” – Tacloban resident

“We are down to a few days of rice.” “Can you ask your Tito Cito to buy us even one sack of rice when he comes?” “We will send Mama and your brothers to Manila via Cebu, but we have to stay and defend our store and our home.”  –  message from close friends from Tacloban

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Those messages got through first via a SAT phone from a British journalist at Ground Zero Tacloban, then some from people who managed to get to Cebu and finally from people who went by land until they saw signal bars flashing some 100 kilometers outside Tacloban. Not even the Battle of Leyte was this bad.

Finally last Monday night at almost midnight I received a text from Tacloban City: “We need Martial Law now!!!! gov’t inept will try get out all 6 of us tom.” 

Just recalling and writing these messages puts a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. You would never guess how useless, helpless and frustrated I feel judging from how I drown myself with work and a hectic schedule, somehow hoping it will sustain me until the time when it is safe to lead a convoy of donations and relief goods into Tacloban.

I am sure that all of you out there find yourself in the same predicament. Reading the messages on Facebook, the desperate desire to help is clear and full of emotions. Unfortunately now more than ever, reason dictates that we be patient, plan properly and work together in order to have the strength in numbers as well as volumes as far as aid and resources are concerned. This disaster that has come upon all of us and not just the Visayas will be with us for at least 6 months and longer. Even the most powerful and advanced nation in the world, the US took much longer dealing with Hurricane Katrina, a storm of even less cataclysmic proportions.

The situation is so extreme in most places that people have suggested that “we” simply relocate people in order to clear the area and reduce the level of complications. First priority is for people to adopt family and friends affected in the Visayas, then to provide transportation to people who can relocate elsewhere until the affected areas are normalized. My wife and I have already extended such an invitation to one family in Tacloban, and contacting yet another. “Adopting” is not new to all the Beltran siblings, my sister Marissa has an entire basketball team!  

Now more than ever we must learn to be understanding, patient, and forgiving of others, of critics and even “looters” or those who at first glance may have gone AWOL or opted to think “family first” before duty. In the worst context the critics may only be trying to do something or get things done although we may disagree with their style. The looters are not urban dwellers with cars and apartments to run back to with their loot, they are officially homeless people robbed of everything even their loved ones by Typhoon Yolanda. Let us not add condemnation and judgment made in the comfort of our homes through iPads and iPhones that make it so easy to “share” our opinion.

Yes I wonder about certain actions and statements made by the President in the shocking chaos of Tacloban. Yes it would have been easier to lambast or criticize him. But our situation is not easy, most especially his, and criticism has no value. If the President “walked out” of a briefing as many have tried to exaggerate, was it not admirable that he chose to walk out to gather his composure and his wits rather than blindly lash out continuously?

Yes I was disturbed by reports that the President hinted or seemed to find fault with local officials concerning the extent of disaster in Tacloban. But he did “reserve his comments” perhaps prevailed upon by an angel or common sense rather than to trust impressions or perhaps inaccurate information fed to him by equally destructive politicians. For now, let us give him the benefit of the doubt and leave the right to judge him to the officials and people of Tacloban.

Yes I wonder what was taking the President so long to decide on Martial Law, but once I really thought about it, I realized and agree that it is not necessary. We must be careful of unleashing powers that are known to devour the reasoning of men. We must be wary a sword in the hands of the wrong people who could use it against political enemies and potentially against us. We must be afraid of ourselves. Martial Law is not the answer, effective and responsive leadership and management is. If the main problem are looters then the solution is to send down policemen and if necessary the Marines. Yes it is taking time, but this is real life, not some segmented movie scenes that happen in minutes.

In the mean time let us ignore or set aside what distract us from what is most important: to encourage those who are working, to send hope to the hopeless and to call upon God for help. That’s all that’s required of us for now.

“By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we do alone” — Gordon Brown/Labor Party UK  

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