Tag: resilience

Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle should just shut up about the Yolanda victims

December 2, 2013 benign0 87 Comments

Recall the monstrous earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck Japan back in 2011 causing untold death and suffering there. The stoicism and quiet grace with which the Japanese greeted the unimaginable destruction and loss of life, mobilised its forces to assess and respond, and reached out to the global community to receive assistance speaks volumes…

Civics, Religion, Society

Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) aftermath: How are Filipinos coping?

November 10, 2013November 10, 2013 benign0 51 Comments

What might be the true full extent of the devastation wreaked by super-typhoon Haiyan (code-named “Yolanda”) has been revealed in recent reports from “a Red Cross” official who quoted horrific numbers that dwarf initial death toll estimates… “We estimate 1,000 people were killed in Tacloban and 200 in Samar province,” Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of…

Civics, Environment, Society

Metro Manila a candidate for urban ‘catastrophic failure’ according to policy expert

August 10, 2012 benign0 39 Comments

The virtue of ‘resilience’ has become a dirty word now in the Philippines as third-time unlucky Manila is again hit by another one of those “one-in-one-hundred” calamities that were once the key statistical notion underpinning urban planners’ archaic flood “control” master plans. Although response to the disaster has “improved”, the feel-good rhetoric around Filipinos’ cockroach-like…

Development, Environment, Government

Addressing the Filipino nature: we shouldn’t stop at merely coping

June 28, 2012December 5, 2013 a 14 Comments

It is on rare occasions that I suddenly recall, out of nowhere, a random scene from a movie I’ve watched in the distant past. As I sat in front of my computer, lamenting the loss of my butter cookies (which I’ve eaten up a few days ago), a scene from one of Keanu Reeves’ so-so…

Culture, Society

When it rains, it pours: weathering the Filipino calamity

June 3, 2012 FallenAngel 4 Comments

Starting this week, we still living here in the Philippines encountered the first bouts of deluge that are a sure sign of the arrival of the rainy season. With the advent of the rainy season, the start of the school season comes along with it too. Expect there to be heavy traffic starting tomorrow, as…

Culture, Economy, Environment, Government, Society