Learning through questioning

My father had shared a little analogy on how people have become unprepared for this upcoming typhoon, and I often ask him, “Why is that?” it went something like this, “The situation that we are in right now can be compared to how some people treat their teeth, now you think it’s alright not to brush your teeth from time to time, but when the moment your tooth aches, you’ll surely regret all those times you didn’t brush your teeth.”

People tend to act a little different when it comes to preparedness and the inability to use that preparedness at the right time and at the wrong time. More often than not, people tend to prepare their appropriate necessities when first warned at the sight of a typhoon, but when the anticipated typhoon never comes, our immediate reaction to this is to feel relief and at ease. The more this happens though, the less tense we feel about the whole situation of the idea of incoming typhoons, therefore underestimating the capacity that a typhoon may hold at any given time.

And that was exactly what happened to us.

On the night of Nov. 11, 2020, the sound of the pitter-patter of rain consistently murmured from our roofs, bringing bliss for our ears to hear as we fall asleep. But as when daybreak soon arrived, the pitter-patter sound grew aggressively into a downpour of large raindrops mixed with the howls of the wind, and the next thing we knew it was already flooding outside of our home. Waking up to no electricity and the minimal amount of water available, my mother quickly urged my father to wake up and look outside of our window as the flood at around 6:00am was already half of the height of our car outside of our home. Thankfully, they were able to save our car and park it inside of our gates before it submerged almost fully into the flood.

Our entire street, looking as if it’s the Grand Canal. Off the distance is our neighbor’s cars submerged in the flood (which was actually pushed to a higher location later on).

Our neighbors slowly rowing to the other end of the street to buy some necessities without submerging into the flood.

The flood was inching in by the minute, with the downpour of the rain as we stare outside of our door, anticipating the stop of it all. We had just recently moved to this house of ours in the Marikina area and to our surprise, we heard random droplets from the inside, leaks were all over the place and we had to hurry to get multiple containers for our items not to get wet. Much to our dismay though, a lot of my parents’ products were drenched with rainwater from the leaks, but thankfully the flood had stopped increasing in height reaching only the inside of our gates and not inside of our house.

After a day had passed by, when the flood was slowly falling and electricity was somewhat coming back, my parents decided to go out and drive to other properties that we owned to check if there were items of ours that got destroyed. Along the way, my parents were able to help out a fellow relative of ours that was affected by the flood since he was also living in the Marikina area. Though as a person that can only do so much, I also wanted to help out as much as I can by cleaning up the debris found at the front of our house and mopping up any puddles from the leaks inside of our house.

The garbage and dirt that had piled up outside of our gates.

While I was stuck in the bubble of my home, unbeknown to me are the graveness of what happened to others. Questions of what are the current situations of other people that are even lower locations found in the Philippines came into mind. With the use of the Da Vincian principle, Curiosita, helped me become more aware of the possible situations that were to possibly happen before, during, and after the typhoon that was outside my home, outside my city. I had come up with 50 questions with the concept of the current situation that we are in.

Why does the government only act in the light of the typhoon after it’s finished? Why does it need to happen first in order for action to happen from the government? Why are we pushing for resilience and not anti-fragility?

As I asked these questions to myself, I ponder over the thought of how drastic other people have experienced the typhoon and then I proceeded to investigate through the use of apps such a Facebook and Twitter. With the explosion of social media posts regarding their respective current situation, from the massive amount of posts calling for help to rescue fellow relatives that were stranded to the painful video of numerous infrastructures being destroyed (like the Riverbanks bridge hitting the Marcos Highway overpass). In immediate situations, who are the supposed people out to help those who are in critical conditions in the face of a disaster? Had the government been able to execute immediate precautions for the masses to follow and be able to give out announcements regarding the typhoons and dams beforehand, those people would have not suffered so much as they have faced now.

The need for accountability is upon us, not romanticized resiliency that blinds us from the lack of preparedness we have as a nation.

“DEMAND RESILIENCY, DO NOT GLORIFY ACCOUNTABILITY” — Words by Ella Hyacinth Golez & Art by Kelly Ronveaux

Now, what are we able to do when we know that the government is lacking in their own part?

This is along the lines of the Atenean students’ movement, by making a stand on what we believe is right towards our fellow classmates that are trying all their best to cope up with their education.

At first, I found it quite absurd as to why would students pose postponing their education as a threat to the government, but I do agree with the intention of leaving no student behind. With much questioning and understanding, students actually play a critical role in the big picture of the country’s labor force, if we were to postpone our efforts on finishing our education, it does not only take a toll on the students’ lives but also the production of the country’s intellectual labor.

Though I do commend those people who are not able to stand still with the current handling of the situation we Filipinos are going through, lending those that are heavily affected a voice, to let the government listen and realize that by continuing the academic year, millions of students would not be given the same opportunities. But this would only be possible if we were to stand hand in hand as one, not divided as none.

I’d like to think of the principle of curiosita being most applicable to this part as this question is explicitly needed to be brought up to the masses:

“What has a better chance for change to come: 0% of succeeding as we don’t do anything about our current situation, or 50% of actually trying to make a stance that the way we are being treated now is unacceptable towards the masses?”

Finally, if we were to act like a nation of individual citizens, what efforts can we exert collectively in order to drive change back in the direction where the masses need it, not where the government sees it?

To my best ability in the given situation of the numerous issues that have arisen in the face of the disastrous effects of the typhoon, I ask myself what can normal citizens do to help out to those people who are in need of help.

At the time of the academic suspension spanning about a week, I tried to go on to the platforms where people usually share posts that call for aid, such as Facebook and Twitter. I think to the extent of my ability, the minimum that I can do would be to share as many trusted donation drives and share out Facebook posts that are in need of immediate rescuing. Sharing posts might be a small thing to do in the eyes of other people, but I think no matter how small the effort might be, as long as we can do it collectively, it turns into a big step for those who are in need.

I decided to donate a portion of my savings to an Atenean that was having their own call for donations and the Ambagan PH found at Twitter in order to somehow help with their operations, it may not be of big value but I do hope every peso would be of use to them.

I think it is very important to ask, what people can do in order to help, not matter how big or how small the help maybe. Help is help.

At the end of the day, in what ways can we Filipinos work together for us to rise altogether amidst this downfall of events? In what ways can we lend a helping hand to those who are in flood-prone areas?

With a mix of Da Vinci’s principle of Dimostrazione, a commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and willingness to learn from mistakes, we should be able to ask certain questions that would be beneficial to our situations in the near future, when this happens all again and not make the same mistakes as before. Making us more knowledgeable and less prone to calamities as a nation.

Question everything, Learn something, Answer nothing. — Euripides