Fourth Week of Advent: "NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD"

Christmas won't be the same without you. When you thought you have
really felt grief to its extremes, you might wanna ask this father...

The fourth week of advent somehow started with a bleak note, with typhoon SENDONG sweeping across the Visayas and Mindanao areas, spreading carnage over Iligan and Cagayan de Oro. While I am writing this, the latest NDRMMC figure on the "Sendong" death toll has already reached a staggering 927.

Nine hundred and twenty-seven people. 

Dead. 

Just before Christmas.

You can't even begin to imagine the vehemence of the situation. Imagine: piles of dead bodies wrapped in what barely pass as body bags queued in morgues; survivors are left homeless and are forced to live along the highways; millions of worth of properties that took years to develop are now but rubble in a massive sea of total annihilation.

And this is the sad story of how the entire Philippines was brought to a sudden halt in the course of all the pre-Christmas festivities… so much for the perfect Christmas.

Then again, at the height of our resentment with the current situation, the customary blame game starts again. Predictably, some people blame NDRMMC for lacking preparation. Then, of course, the President will always have a share in the blame, as his critics once again started ranting about his veto for the approval of additional millions of pesos for disaster preparation. What’s up with that? They aren’t really going to the root of the whole situation, are they?

Friends, the foremost reason for this tragedy is human greediness. There are people who, in their relentless pursuit for wealth, continue to destroy the environment and deplete the earth of its natural resources. For how long have mining activities been active in the affected areas? Why is logging still rampant in these areas after all these years of public protest against it? And why the heck do multi-millionaire politicians/businessmen still take interest in expanding their real estate business in these regions, thus necessitating the transformation forest/agricultural areas into mere subdivisions? I don’t know about you but for me, this spells total self-indulgence: making yourself richer still at the expense of the security of the people within the area affected by the nature of your industry’s activities.

If there’s one thing that the whole situation is telling us, it is our inevitable submission to nature when we leave ourselves vulnerable to the possible callousness of Mother Nature.

But then, playing the blame game isn’t going to help in anyway, would it? Could it still bring back the lives of the hundreds whose lives were taken due to the calamity? Could it reconstruct the homes of those whose homes have been wrecked by the floods? Blaming could only get you as far as the courts.

What are we then to do?

In the spirit of Christmas, I urge everyone to HELP the victims in one way or another. There are a myriad of ways to help. You may visit http://www.worldvision.org.ph/stories/world-vision-responds-survivors-typhoon-sendong-washi or http://definitelyfilipino.com/blog/2011/12/18/typhoon-sendongs-victims-need-you/ if you don’t know how to start off with the helping thing. Donations can cost you as little as a measly 5 pesos; but when your heart is set out into really helping and not minding the cost, sky’s the limit for you.

Thank you for your generous hearts.

More than the material help that we can give, may we also PRAY for the victims. God never fails to relieve us of our sufferings, and God does not abandon us, especially in the trying times of our defenselessness.

Moreover, let us pray for the enlightenment of the minds of those who are behind the large-scale mining and logging operations not just in these areas, but in the entire Philippines— that they may give more consideration to the possible repercussions of their activities over their material gain.


As the Christmas season looms just around the corner, we must not give up all our hopes for the redemption of this seemingly devastated Christmas celebration.

For nothing is impossible with God.