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The Unwavering Filipino Spirit
Saturday, October 19, 2013 posted at 10/19/2013 12:37:00 PM ♥ 0 comments
As I said before, the Philippines has constant visitors - turmoil and chaos. Although it is blessing that our country is situated in a tropical location which the foreigners love, it is also a curse as it is the landfall of most typhoons during the wet season.And the country is also in the Pacific Ring of Fire, arc in the Pacific Ocean where volcanic eruptions and earthquakes also happened.
Not only that, man-made catastrophes are there, literally and figuratively. Our natural resources are continuously dwindling due to endless illegal logging, animal smuggling, quarrying, and mining. To add cherry on top, our government is headed by politicians who don't have our best interest at heart. The endless issues of malversation of public funds, corruption, and illegal use of the country's resources have been haunting the Filipino people for quite sometime now.
The second and third quarter of the year have been not so good for the country. First was the revelation of the biggest syndicate in the history of the country - the Pork Barrel Scam which involved personalities from the Senate and the Congress. All of the sudden, an unknown person named Janet Lim-Napoles orchestrated the said scam, milking public funds through bogus non-government organizations for personal use. It was reported that people from high places are using this systematic scam to illegal transfer funds to their personal bank accounts.
Unfortunately, the drama is far from over since the people involved are constantly denying their involvement in the alleged scam. Excuses and alibis such as "My signature was forged" to "I don't know her" were exhausted to a fault.
But it didn't stop there. In the middle of the 10-Billion Pork Barrel Scam, Zamboanga City was sieged by a rebel group known as Moro National Liberation Front who heartlessly took civilians as hostages and killed soldiers mercilessly. This rebellion lasted for almost a month and resulted to orphaned children, widowed wives, damaged and burned homes and infrastructures, and traumatized citizens and economy.
And it seems Mother Nature wanted some taste of revenge for her own. A week or so after the resolution of Zamboanga crisis, typhoon Santi devastate the south causing deaths and heightening the fear of the already burdened residents.
And another blow hit the country when a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Cebu and Bohol causing millions and even billions worth of damaged church and residential homes making many of the Boholanos homeless and hopeless.
It is safe to say that our country is always in the battle for survival. Everyday, we are trudging our way to be home safe. When are always devastated by disasters, breaking our hearts and spirits. But despite all this, our spirits are resilient. We always find a way to get back on track. All move on despite the heartbreak. We get up and start again.
We know that there will be more disasters to come. But our strength will prevail and our smile will shine through the tears. Keep holding on
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| Photo from lovegrafik in Flickr.com |
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| Photo from Behance.net |
To those who are willing to help our fellow Boholanos, you can donate through Gawad Kalinga and Ayala Foundation:
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| From Gawad Kalinga website |
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| For Ayala Foundation |
Labels: Filipinos, Philippines
