When I started writing this, Cebu Daily News reported that superstorm Yolanda was scheduled to make landfall in Samar last Wednesday night or Thursday morning. So we in Cebu and the Visayas, particularly, have been advised to “take precautionary measures to stock up on water and essential supplies good for at least three days.”
I remember when Cebu was last hit by 1990’s typhoon Ruping with over 200 kph winds. We had no electric power for about a month!
For now, let me hark back to All Saints’ and All Souls’ Days last November 1 and 2. My dear departed dead (my father, mother and husband) will understand and forgive me for not visiting them at the Cebu Memorial Park on those days, since it would have been very difficult for a person with disability like me in my walker to maneuver through the crowds and the uneven cemetery grounds. Instead, I sent my helper to lay flowers over their graves. My late daughter Raquel, is now interred in San Diego, California. So I remembered them, and continue to do so, in my prayers at Mass in church and aired over TV. May they rest in peace with God.
Last Monday, Nov. 4th, was the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo, bishop of Milan. I remember visiting Milan in a personal side trip during a three-month International Labor Organization grant in Turin, Italy. This was during my broadcasting years with the Labor Station Radio Station dyLA. Visiting the Cathedral in Milan, I came across his grave there, as San Carlo Borromini, involved in the education of the youth, who had passed away at 46. He is the saint after whom our University of San Carlos in Cebu was named.
Hopefully in Bohol, they celebrated last Monday Carlos P. Garcia Day, in honor of Bohol’s most illustrious son, who served as the Philippines’ eighth President in 1957 through 1961.
Classes in all levels were spended yesterday in Cebu, Bohol, Negros Oriental and Siquijor in anticipation of supertyphoon Yolanda. Here in Cebu when classes were earlier to have been resumed, even rescheduled under heroic conditions with many classrooms destroyed or even torn down, so children had to hold classes in improvised classrooms in other public or even private buildings. Under these conditions, lacking necessary school materials and supplies, many reportedly suffered from the “jitters” and had to undergo stress debriefing, particularly in hardest-hit Loon, Tubigon and Sagbayan in Bohol. Also in Bohol, two major roads and three bridges still remain closed.
How ironic that Cebu and others in the Visayas had been rated among the top five islands in Asia or, as another rating considered Cebu, Bohol and the rest of the Visayas received 3rd ranking as Asia’s best island destinations!
Meanwhile, under conditions of ruin and devastation, the human spirit also rises, so that we learn that soldiers in the Northern Luzon Command, bless them, had built furniture from felled trees, furniture for Zamboanga and Bohol schools, and some sold it so that money could be sent to Zamboanga and Bohol equally for next year.We also learn that the Department of Education has decided to start the Senior High a year earlier.
In the wake of the instability of the Cebu City Medical Center (CCMC) building with patients having to be evacuated outside of the building, organizations have assembled to help build new CCMC professionals “Championing the Advancement, Restoration and Establishment of a new CCMC.” Bless their kind souls!
Then on TV this week, we learned that at Camp Aguinaldo, soldiers were awarded for their heroic stand at the Zamboanga siege or stand-off there last September. We learned that one post-humous award was also received by his widow. How true the saying that under the most trying, even disastrous conditions, heroes are made!
Turning to more peaceful but also trying conditions, we learn that the Philippines’ and Cebu’s Rubilen Amit made it as the Yalin Women’s World 10 Ball Champion held this week in Manila, besting Asian and Western contenders at the billiards table. Congratulations!
Back to the destruction to still existing school and government buildings, the debate is between retrofitting or tearing down of affected buildings. Unfortunately, in the exchange, politics has been involved in the debate regarding funding, even with construction professionals.
Meanwhile, under trying conditions, we look forward, with the people of Lapu-Lapu City, to their annual fluvial parade next week on Nov. 13th , in honor of their patroness, Our Lady of the Rule.
And now, with Yolanda set to make landfall in Samar, my monthly Women’s Kapihan on Radio Station dyLA on Saturday, and our Cebu United Radio and TV Artists, Inc. meeting on Sunday, under the uncertain weather conditions, it remains, in Cebuano, Atangi ang mosunod… and much more.
In closing, God rest the soul of activist priest Jose Dizon, who before his death at 65 last Monday, after concelebrating Mass with Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, had specified that he wanted to be buried very simply.
Until next week then, as always, may God continue to bless us, one and all!