This past weekend, the Philippines was hit by typhoon Ondoy (international codename: Ketsana). According to Digital Typhoon, Ondoy brought 410mm of rainfall within a 24-hour period, “the largest record in 40 years”. Flashfloods followed, power cuts and even communications were affected. To date, GMA News reports that over 100 people lost their lives and 340,000 people affected by Ondoy’s battering of Manila.
In tragedies like these, Filipinos always display their sense of bayanihan. Simply translated as ‘camaraderie’, bayanihan’s entry in Wikipedia says:
…a spirit of communal unity or effort to achieve a particular objective.
For the present calamity, Pinoys (demonym for Filipinos) have taken bayanihan a notch higher by utilising social media like Twitter and Facebook. These sites have been flooded (no pun intended) with updates of people needing to be rescued, warnings of impassable roads and prayers for safety to family and friends, especially when actual communication lines were down. It had helped people abroad, like me, not only to know what has been happening but also with an opportunity to help, particularly when news had been scarce like here in the UK. The tweets and status updates also helped in spreading information on how to send donations — in monies and in kind — to the victims.
Some information shared through these sites, however, were not quite in the spirit of bayanihan like those of that Filipina in Dubai and GMA’s spending habits. Many Pinoys reacted quite strongly to these, which I think was energy misspent. I am not saying that the world shouldn’t be informed of these but the timing was not right, in my opinion. Attention should have been focused more on finding ways to help rather than rant on such misgivings.
But despite that, this recent display of bayanihan is something that we, Pinoys, should really be proud of. However, even when the worst of the storm is over, there is still work to be done. There are still a lot of people who need help. There are many ways to help whether you are in the Philippines or abroad:
- Send Paypal donations thru TXTPower – all donations will be passed on to the Philippine National Red Cross
- Donate directly to the Philippine National Red Cross – cash, bank deposit or credit card
- Volunteer in the rescue operations – check Sour Politics for information
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