Pictures from the Storm

Helpless. Helpless. The mother had been crying all night even as the storm was wailing. Her 36-year-old son was pinned down by a mango tree in San Fabian, Pangasinan Saturday night. Sunday morning and still her son was there. How can her neighbors not feel anything enough not to ease that pain. The neighbors wouldn't touch him, talking about their own problems.
I told this to a friend later over a cup of coffee, this is not how we Filipinos act. Let's say there was no hope: his spine was broken; but we don't leave our dead there. He said something about the "culture of poverty," of thinking only of our own puny needs in this time indeed of need. Thinking it was not us who was pinned down.
It was a tiring day. I had no energy left to argue. The storm took something we thought we can keep even if our houses were destroyed and our clothes ripped away. We thought we had each other.