Friday, November 15, 2013

Oro, Plata,Mata and Yolanda

Much attention has been given Peque Gallaga's supposed rant against the government's alleged failure to deal with the Yolanda super typhoon aftermath.

Whether or not the 70-year-old director actually wrote this letter, which is a well-written manifesto, I would rather go back to his masterpiece from 31 years ago -- the film Oro, Plata, Mata.

The film tells the story of two haciendero families in Negros, and how World War II turned their world upside down. The war was like a super typhoon that stripped society of its social hierarchy and structure and exposed underlying conflicts between social classes, good and evil, and family members. It exposed man's inhumanity to man and confronted him with his humanity. It forced people to choose between survival and their values, between dignity and their basest instincts. In the end, no one was left untouched. The war changed everyone's life forever. Some hiding secrets, some harboring regrets, and some emerging scarred but perhaps wiser and stronger.

I think the movie is a good metaphor for what Filipinos are going through today. This disaster has stripped us naked to the world and to each other. It has exposed underlying social issues and weaknesses. The apparent misalignment between government response agencies and local units, the opportunism of lawless elements, the self-serving media, finger-pointing and political agenda - Yolanda didn't create these. They were there all along and are now staring us in the face.

Like the characters in the movie, we are now faced with a choice. Do we succumb to this disaster and end up with the broken soul of a people? Or do we rise above it, dig deep from our values and pull together to get out of this with our dignity and humanity intact? It is no small feat for a society to come out of disaster with its head high. The British did it during World War II and the Japanese after the recent tsunami. It takes leadership but it also takes each individual to make the right choices -- good over evil, action over indifference, unity over discord, and hold each other accountable for the common good. Perhaps this disaster should bring the best out of us instead of the worst. Small deeds put together define our character.

The Filipinos are not short of heroism. There are people there risking life and limb to bring back sanity and order. Many acts of kindness and bravery remain to be told. We need to do more, not just in this immediate time of emergency, but more so to learn from it and perhaps start on the road to recovery, not just rebuilding homes and lives but cleaning up our institutions, picking up speed not only in demanding for more honesty in spending the people's money but doing it more effectively so that we will not have to go through this again.

We will not get out of this unscathed. For better or for worse Yolanda has changed our society forever. It is up to us to take this opportunity to come out wiser and stronger. The world is watching. And future generations of Filipinos will judge us.