A ‘stormed’ nation in mourning

Seventy-seven Filipinos perished when Typhoon Glenda (or, Rammasun) pummeled the Philippines with gusty winds that uprooted century-old trees, felled electric posts, lifted roofs from houses and bashed signages even of topnotch hotels and restaurants last week.
Death toll is likely to rise, as more debris in the nation’s capital and its outside radius are being cleared. The typhoon exposed the extreme vulnerability of Metro Manila when nearly 90 percent of electricity was knocked off, leaving even its posh suburbs in the dark.
How strong was typhoon Glenda? My friend, writer Danton Remoto, posted this on my Facebook page at the height of the storm: “Very strong rain and wind in Loyola Heights now. Direct hit will be over the Ateneo area, a block from where I live. Lights on then off again. This storm is beastly! Sound of wind whooooooo. GI roofs being torn from their wooden beams.”
Loyola Heights is a university district in Quezon City, one of the most populous residential areas in Metro Manila. The news reports that followed the storm were filled with heartbreaking stories. The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that one of the fatalities, Jomarck Diaz, 19, was lowering the national flag in Barangay (village) Palatiw Hall in Pasig when he was hit by falling hollow blocks.
While we tried to make sense of the magnitude of this calamity, we received another blow. Among those aboard MH17, a Malaysian aircraft that was allegedly downed by a surface-to-air missile fired from a conflict area in Ukraine were three Filipinos. The Department of Foreign Affairs has since identified the passengers as the Gunawan family — Indonesian Budy Janto Gunawan, his Filipino wife Irene, and their children Darryl Dwight and Sherryl Shania — with Irene and her children holding Philippine passports. According to Irene’s family, her last text message contained a promise to help out following the devastation caused by typhoon Glenda. Her husband, Budy, works for Malaysian Airlines in Amsterdam.
A storm that claimed several lives in a span of three hours and a tragic air disaster caused by still unseen hands in a span of minutes have brought immense grief to over ninety million Filipinos.
For life to be cut short because of the uncontrollable fits of Mother Nature is far different from knowing that an entire family, if not families, were wiped out because of a conflict that they were not even that much aware of.
We cannot do much about the first, but we in the Philippines demand the truth about the second violent and unjustified loss of lives.