Christmas at home, at this time

There’s nothing like being in a non-Christian country during Christmas to realize just how special the season is in the Philippines.

In Taiwan, it was mid-December but the holiday fever was nowhere to be felt. True, tinsel and holly festooned the hotel lobby and hallways, and Christmas carols were piped in constantly. At Taipei 101, the humongous skyscraper that sits in Taipei’s business district, there was an obligatory Santa’s Cottage and even a life-size snow globe. But elsewhere, there was hardly any sign of Christmas cheer.

“The big thing here is Chinese New Year,” said a staffer of the Manila Economic and Cultural Office. The entire week of the celebration, he said, all offices close down and almost the entire population hunkers down to serious feasting. But Christmas? “It’s like an ordinary working day, except that this year, Christmas falls on a weekend.”

I had about half of my shopping and gift-wrapping done by the time I took the hour-and-a-half flight to Taipei, but the bargains caused me to revise my gift list. Still, a slight damper was the fact that it was “winter” in Taiwan, with winds from Siberia chilling the air, and most clothing items on sale were for cold weather.

I missed the frenzied jostling for good bargains, and while Taiwanese as a whole are more polite and circumspect than their counterparts in Hong Kong or Beijing (with the exception of two snooty sales assistants) there was little of the warmth and welcoming smiles that wreath the faces of Pinoy vendors at this time of the year.

That was what I missed most: the holiday cheer all around, the spirit of sharing that characterizes most interactions during this season, and the shared history and beliefs—from the birth of Jesus in a manger, Simbang Gabi, noche buena, and even jolly old St. Nick, in all his red-and-white manifestations.

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Today we are required to draw upon reserves of faith, goodwill and goodness. The Northern Mindanao disaster spells a bleak Christmas for thousands of our countryfolk, many of them confronted with an uncertain and certainly homeless future.

Will their spirit of celebration manage to rise above the gloom of thousands of deaths, thousands more missing, and devastated cities? Even in faraway Manila, the pall of the disaster has descended. Even those determined to make merry find the gaiety empty and bereft of real cheer. How can we gorge ourselves on ensaymada and jamon, fruitcake and chestnuts, when thousands are going hungry, rioting just for their rations of water?

Friends and colleagues inject a bit of social awareness into the season. They are gathering cash to send to organizations on the ground in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan to buy much-needed supplies to often-overlooked communities. There are organizations that specialize in delivering specific, particular needs, like Unicef which is concentrating on the hygiene needs of the survivors, particularly women and girls. After all, who remembers needs like toothpaste and toothbrushes, soap, sanitary napkins and clean underwear in the midst of so much misery?

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Then there is the buzzword of the moment: psycho-social rehabilitation. There is now an awareness that beyond the merely physical—the need to fill hungry stomachs and thirsty gullets, the necessity for a clean, dry place to sleep—there also exists a need to address the psychological and emotional trauma that survivors go through.

There is first of all the grief that has been shunted aside for now in the wake of more urgent concerns. But certainly, the loss of a family member—or two or more—cannot but exact a toll on the psyche. Especially since many were simply swept away with the dark waters, within minutes of the rising of the water. And since identification of the remains is still spotty and will take some time, the grieving is postponed, the wait for a proper burial interminable.

Then there is the insecurity attendant to their present situation. Local governments now proclaim that the urban poor communities that bore the brunt of the floods, located in precarious sand bars and flood plains, can no longer return to their former locations. Where are they to live? Both the national and local governments should immediately sit down and map out relocation sites and plans, if only to reassure survivors that it is still possible to start anew, that there is a place waiting for them even after all the destruction.

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All these are taking place amid the festivity and feasting of Christmas.

Perhaps that is what lends a cruel twist to the post-Sendong scenario. No matter the deprivation, the misery, the loss, Filipinos must still celebrate Christmas. Yes, even the displaced thousands crowding evacuation centers. More than any other Filipinos, it may be they in fact who most need to distract themselves from their sadness and dislocation.

Visiting groups, including actors who by their mere presence lent a touch of glamour and thrilled their fans among the evacuees, are trying their best to lend a touch of Christmas cheer on the ground. The nation is gearing itself up to face the prolonged effects of Sendong’s devastation. There are lessons to be learned and policies to be assessed and heads will  roll.

Indeed, the long-term meaning of this Christmastime disaster has to be that it will not be repeated, ever. As a nation, and as citizens, we have to ensure that the death toll from a storm or heavy rainfall should not reach the thousands, as it has in Northern Mindanao. We need to keep at our officials to work at reducing the risks, mitigating the possible damage, and listening to scientists when they warn about the impact of climate change.

Only then will there truly be “peace on Earth and goodwill to all.”