High Hopes

AIMING HIGH Sendong survivors reaching out for some relief

I FIND IT VERY IRONIC that the Social Weather Survey (SWS) has recently issued a statement saying that 95% of Filipinos did enter the New Year with some hope clinging to their shoulders. And to make matters even more surprising, the areas that have recorded such highs are those that have been in the thick of destruction, whether a typhoon, a landslide or a flood.

Despite the devastations of Sendong that took the lives of many Mindanao residents, hope is still making its way through into the island as it registered an increase in the survey from 89% to 94%, a feat last recorded in 2002. And alongside Mindanao though, Metro Manila stayed within its range of 96%, a record in itself, notwithstanding its own share of heavy rains and an even heavier destruction at times.

But this is one piece of good news that should keep us for the rest of the year. It wouldn’t be too hard to validate the survey if you consider the outpouring of aid in the aftermath of Sendong that most of the victims might not feel any hope at all. The Bayanihan effect certainly did some wonders to those flood victims as it did make those who extended help feel good about themselves. Although this unusual development might not register significantly in the consciousness of those who have been affected by recent events, this increase in the survey is probably an indication as to why we keep on hoping, against hope sometimes, that ours, at least from a conditioning standpoint, is not yet hopeless.

This is certainly an upgrade. And to think we still have yet to discuss our political situation which has gone problematic lately than our own environmental concerns. And an increase in hope, whether in a survey or word of mouth, is almost absurd, considering it came under the heels of a potential constitutional crisis at the expense of Chief Justice Renato Corona’s impeachment case. Somehow it runs counter to the mood that has engulfed not only in Mindanao lately but to the rest of the country as well. It is as if there is a deliberate attempt to resort to some hopeful means not because we have to but because we really don’t have any choice at all.

Two weeks ago, a better part of the Caraga Region was under water. And as soon as the waters begin to rise, volunteers from the local government started doing their rounds, trying to convince some of the residents of San Francisco, one of the severely flooded towns, to evacuate immediately. And as soon as I heard them calling us out of our houses to simply evacuate Sendong came into my mind. We stayed inside the house nonetheless; still hoping the waters would recede, and it did, but our reactions, looking back, and to my surprise later was actually in keeping with that equally surprising survey I read just days after the deluge took place, an act that merely validates its purported claim.

Somehow efforts of resuscitating CDO and Iligan from further drowning far exceeded expectations. Other major cities and provinces of the country came to the rescue, in bundles, trying to minimize the damage and depression brought about by that devastation typhoon. But the hopeful reaction, however, was simply off the hook. Maybe it lends its support that typhoons are a rarity in the island and that Sendong was just a minor glitch Mindanaons can afford to suffer at that time, despite its shocking arrival and utter destruction. It’s still raining highs and hopes in Mindanao, regardless of the flood and mud basking on it.

But these numbers speak for themselves, like “It’s more fun in the Philippines”, to labor the words of the Tourism department. And that’s what makes this whole survey a little less surprising than its relative irony. Even the landslide in Compostella Valley couldn’t contain its ongoing phenomenon. That no matter what the happens moving forward and that the stakes involved in it seemed to rise along with the flood, most Filipinos will simply smile their way through when that moment comes and ultimately accept its inevitability. If hope is the only thing that has wings, so says Emily Dickinson, then it has rubbed off in the survey with flying colors.