If you’re not angry, you haven’t been paying attention
2020 certainly has had it’s fair share of crisis and catastrophe. Here’s some personal work I’ve done in protest.
The Philippines is no stranger to typhoons, experiencing up to 20 annually during its monsoon season. But in the height of climate change and global warming, these typhoons have been growing more frequent and ever stronger over the years. This November 2020, Typhoon Ulysses slammed into the densely populated regions of Luzon, (a mere week after super Typhoon Goni made landfall; killing 17 people, and impacting 2 million lives and livelihoods). Ulysses death toll reached 73 persons by Nov 30 and is the deadliest typhoon this year.
Both typhoons left a path of devastation, smashing through homes with windspeeds of up to 215 kph, and flooding whole areas with nonstop, torrential rain. With poor urban planning and infrastructure, the ubiquitous flooding reached dangerous heights, submerging entire neighbourhoods; drowning and destroying through the worst hours of the typhoon. On top of all this, and pandemic aside, hashtags #NasaanAngPangulo (#whereisthepresident) also circulated through the Philippine twitterverse, as critics of president Duterte questioned and blasted his noticeable absence.
The Philippine people are resilient. It is a trait that has been tested through wars, colonisation and poverty. It’s even been celebrated through advertising campaigns and tourist media. Yet with every passing catastrophe, every passing presidency, the blatant absence of change and solution from those who hold power has turned ‘resilience’ into an adage as impotent as “thoughts and prayers”. For while thoughts and prayers do carry a power in themselves, one has to wonder if resilience can still truly be lauded, if at the end of the day, the powers that be leave no other recourse but to endure.
“Being resilient is exhausting”
As of June this year, the US and the Philippines are both gripped in a battle against their own governments; fighting a global pandemic on top of everything else.
Write to your representatives and get the word out.
No Justice, No Peace
