Making amends

In the aftermath of super typhoon “Yolanda’s” (international name: Haiyan) fury, the first major problems attended to by most of the survivors was to find food and potable water when both became very scarce.

The next was to find medicine to treat the wounded and the sick. But there were those who were willing to forego these essential needs in favor of what they thought was a more important one, namely, to find out who among their loved ones survived or perished.

Death came with “Yolanda” in various disguises. Death was first carried by the strong winds as sharp objects blown off caused the destruction of any living things that stood in the way.

But death came mostly with the seawaters that rose 20 to 30 feet. The storm surge, like tsunamis, slammed into the coastal communities three times. In the case of those in Barangay 69/90, they were crushed by cargo boats. In San Joaquin, there were those who died of snake bites when venomous snakes surfaced from their holes.

The scenes where dead bodies were wrapped in blankets, mats and curtains, and later placed inside black bags were heartbreaking. The relatives could not find coffins and provide the dead with a dignified wake. They could not set up burial services as there were no accessible graveyards. The bodies were just placed on the side of the roads.

As decomposing bodies piled up, the international aid agencies with their partner local agencies, which undertook the task of collecting, identifying and burying the dead, found themselves confronted with a massive problem of “cadaver management.” For most Filipinos, whose preconquest ancestors found elaborate rituals to honor their dead and whose contemporary belief system keeps the tradition of having such rituals, the terms sound heartless.

Years from now, “Yolanda” survivors may forget how they dealt with their survival needs but long will they remember how they failed in finding ways to take care of their dead loved ones. Even now they are haunted by the memory of this failure and they do everything they can to make amends—from making confessions of their guilt to lighting candles at the mass graves.

For we are a people who are not into managing cadavers. Instead, we do our best to make sure that our beloved dead would have the best funeral arrangements and burial rites we could arrange. Otherwise, we are not comforted with the thought that they rest in peace. Karl M. Gaspar