Holy are the days for the Eastern Visayas people: Bless them, dear Lord.

ORDINARY CITIZEN'S NOTES. 1 JAN 2014. THUR. N6.
Holy are the days for the Eastern Visayas people: Bless them, dear Lord. 

EASTERN Visayas is spelled resilience. 

It must be so. 

The place has this indomitable spirit, and that spirit, even if battered, does not know how to bow down to that annihilating power of the vacuous. 

Instead, like Phoenix, it keeps on rising from the ashes, with or without Roxas, with or without Romualdez, and better if they are not around. 

With or without P-Noy with this callousness ("But you are alive, right?"). 

With or without B-Nay with his doles, with his technique to doing so in a shameless way. [Remember those relief goods bearing his name?]

I went to Tacloban and many parts of Eastern Visayas many times before Yolanda came a-visiting. 

Yolanda, after kissing its sacred earth, wreaked havoc on this land peopled by real people. 

The Eastern Visayanons are welcoming and warmth, real and happy. 

On their faces is the easy smile of contentment, that cheeky grin suggesting a people that does not know the meaning of surrender. 

I could have been an Eastern Visayanon in the past, and that thought tickles me so. 

I wish I were. 

If reincarnation is true, that must be something to remember--for the soul, transmigrating as always, to reconsider. 

Our reasons are simple. 

How on earth were these Eastern Visayanons able to withstand the tragic effects of that tidal wave of their otherwise calm and giving sea, and the pernicious tidal wave of government apathy is something that I cannot imagine. 

I can only commend them, if that means something at all. 

Perhaps they do know only the meaning of peace, of resignation, of submission to the dictates of the higher forces of this mortal life. 

I let Christmas go by, and this New Year, and yet, at the back of my head are these images of Eastern Visayans trying to get by in life and in death. 

A research assistant from Leyte I hired for a project I am doing lost 25 of his relatives in one full sweep on that day Yolanda came. This, to me, is worse that war. 

It is Apocalypse for the wrong reasons, and has nothing to do with God's promised redemption. 

And now, Pope Francis is going to the Philippines to bless them, these Eastern Visayanons. 

Please, please Pope Francis: say the word to these callous government leaders. Tell them that they have no right to govern because, like the UNA, what they only care to do is give ham to the hungry people. 

HON/