The night of December 16, 2011 was the moment of claiming lives, otherwise an escape from the torrent of death. Everybody wasn't prepared by the coming of typhoon Sendong and it resulted death for many; injuries for some; and missing lives of others. Truly, the people of Cagayan de Oro City were innocent of the coming typhoon.
In moments like this, where is the City Mayor at the time Sendong strikes at midnight? or even before the day it was about to visit the city? He was somewhere else that all of us didn't know. The City Mayor, himself, did not even know about the coming typhoon, he said in an interview. People were questioning him. More of that when there were no preparations seen. Even the warning signal was not emphasized to many and how we can be prepared for the worst situation.
It is the government's duty to protect the people from such calamities as stated in Article II, section 15: "The State shall protect and promote the right to health of the people and instill health consciousness among them." But the city government overlooked on establishing precautionary measures for this. They focus on developing other areas which are not the primary needs of the people-like tourism and road construction. With all these, is it right to blame our city government?
Howbeit a lot of people are questioning Mayor Dongkoy Emano, it seems that we are not also doing our part in protecting ourselves. Before we can build a house, we know the lot. If it is in lowland, we need to evacuate when a typhoon comes. We are also given the prerogative to be vigilant of typhoon warnings and make ourselves informed of what's happening in the society. If we point Mayor Emano, can't we see how many fingers are pointing to ourselves? We are blaming a person just because we see that he is in the position. But are we in the position to put the blame him? It is one's nature to react on such stimulus, but between stimulus and response is the use of knowledge (S-K-R). We see that he is the leader and he has to do all things. Remember that he is not in control of the situation or what might be willed. It is not right to blame a person while we also fail to recognize our mistakes. Did we make ourselves informed of the coming typhoon? Did we consider the place we are living at if in case of such calamities? How did we prepare for such unexpected occurrences like this? Or are we just busy that time on things that we do not need?
Weigh things first before putting judgments on people because we never know how much we can destroy lives through words or how much we unconsciously become like them. It is everybody's responsibility to take care of ourselves as much as the government would protect the people. If we fail to do our roles, then we have to suffer the consequences it may bring. We are responsible and accountable of each other because we are one nation. What we can do now, rather than pin-point the blame, is to extend the most help to the victims to recover from the acrid incident.
Weigh things first before putting judgments on people because we never know how much we can destroy lives through words or how much we unconsciously become like them. It is everybody's responsibility to take care of ourselves as much as the government would protect the people. If we fail to do our roles, then we have to suffer the consequences it may bring. We are responsible and accountable of each other because we are one nation. What we can do now, rather than pin-point the blame, is to extend the most help to the victims to recover from the acrid incident.
-CCB
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