Last Tuesday and Friday, I joined the ABS-CBN teams that went to Cagayan de Oro to help in the relief operations. One will be moved by the sight of the devastation; entire communities were wiped out. One evacuation center we visited had over 1,500 evacuees who came from a community of around 300 houses. Only five houses were left standing.
Tuesday, almost four days after, one could still smell decaying flesh. There were still traces of mud on the streets even after days of cleaning up.
Chona is an 11-year-old from Brgy. Macasandig, Cagayan de Oro. Friday night, Dec. 16, she was sleeping at home with her parents, two older siblings and two younger siblings. It was around midnight when the flash floods swept away their house. At one point, they were separated.
Chona was found 12 hours later near Camiguin island. For 12 hours she held on to debris to keep her afloat. For 12 hours she prayed, not for herself, but for her two younger brothers aged seven and one.
When we saw her Tuesday, she was anxious for news about her one-year-old brother. She was in one evacuation center with her father and mother. Her two older siblings had died. Her seven-year-old brother survived, was found just that afternoon and was brought to another evacuation center. Her one-year-old brother was still missing.
She was at first catatonic when we met her, breaking into sobs as she remembered her two deceased siblings and her brother still missing. The only time she let out a smile was when Nikki Valdez and Diether Ocampo hugged her and Diether whispered something to her.
John, aged 11, and Ryan, 12, are first cousins. Both lost their parents and the rest of their families were missing. They were found 40 hours later near Lanao. They survived by holding on to the bark of a banana tree. They are now under the care of a family friend, since their remaining relatives are in Davao.
Their one request to us was for them to be able to continue their studies. John wants to study criminology and Ryan hopes to be an electrical engineer. They hold on to their dreams despite the uncertain fate of their families.
Christ’s presence
One family was saved because their mother had come from an office Christmas party Friday night. As the flood waters came she managed to wake up her husband and their four kids, aged 15 to six months. Their first thought was to get into the car and drive away, but things happened so fast that their only option was to climb to the roof of their house.
For six hours, all six of them stayed on the roof bearing the heavy rain and the cold. It was pitch dark and all around them they could hear cries for help, many of which soon faded into eternal silence. They kept themselves awake, especially the children, so as not to fall off the roof. They placed the six-month-old baby in a Styrofoam chest they grabbed from among the floating debris. At one point, the mother had to slap the baby who had stopped breathing due to hypothermia.
What kept them not just awake, but hopeful, was all through the six hours they kept on praying and singing religious songs. It also became time for them to forgive one another. At daybreak they knew they had survived the ordeal, the mother said, when they felt so profoundly God’s presence. Realizing they were safe, they were simply overwhelmed by the strong presence of God, as if they were embraced by God.
These are the people who have “walked” in darkness and have seen a great light.
Viktor Frankl, in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning,” wrote that in his experience in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II the ones who survived the ordeal were the ones who held on to hope, hope in the future that they still had something meaningful to do.
For Chona, it was the hope and the prayer that her younger brothers would survive and she would be reunited with them. For John and Ryan, it was the dream to continue studying; to be something and someone. For the family, it was simply keeping each other together and alive and, perhaps unknowingly through their prayers and songs of praise—and forgiveness, it was the inherent longing for God in the human heart and soul.
Hope
Christmas is a time of hope. It is the fulfillment of a promise of Messiah who is to come—as Emmanuel, God-with-us. All hopes and dreams lead us to the manger where the Child lies. This is the joy and surprise of Christmas, the unexpected happens and it opens us to new possibilities that can only come from God.
Christmas surprises us with joy and we realize that with God, all things are possible.
After the trips to Cagayan de Oro, I had mixed feelings. There was the overwhelming feeling that comes with calamities and deaths, but there was also the humbling feeling one experiences when confronted by the mystery of the core of life, the mystery of God’s presence; the mystery that God is in charge: lovingly, providentially present.
In our philosophy classes in college, we called this the mysterium tremendum and the mysterium fascinosum. It was the experience of the paradox and irony of fear and fascination when confronted with the deepest and simplest mysteries of life—the mystery of life and death, the mystery of love and pain, the mystery of God.
Christmas brings us back to this experience: that life is a mystery at one and the same time an awesome experience of tremendum, of fear and a heart warming, inspiring experience of fascinosum, of fascination of the divine.
‘I knew you would come’
Friday, the 23rd, majority of the ExeCom of ABS-CBN went to Cagayan de Oro to distribute relief goods and to celebrate Mass and have lunch with the employees and volunteers. In the homily at Mass, I shared with them a story from the late Fr. Anthony de Mello, SJ, which I wrote in a previous article.
There were two soldiers, Joe and Carl, who were close friends. It was wartime and they were together in one company during an encounter.
When the company got to safe ground, Joe noticed his friend, Carl, was not with them. He asked his commander permission to go back to look for Carl. The commander disapproved, warning that with the heavy fire, Carl would surely be killed. Joe apologized before he disobeyed and ran back to the battlefield.
Minutes later he came back carrying Carl’s dead body. The commander furiously told Joe, “I told you he would have been killed in the fire fight. You foolishly endangered yourself and now I risk losing another man. What a waste, Joe!”
Joe, now fighting for his own life, calmly told the commander, “Sir, it was not a waste. When I got to Carl he was still alive. I held him up and propped him on my lap telling him to hold on. He gasped for breath, smiled and his last and only words were, “Joe, I knew you would come.”
On our way home from the evacuation center last Tuesday, I asked Diether what he told Chona, the 11-year-old girl. Diether told her: “Nandito kami para sa iyo, at marami pang mga kapamilyang darating para dalawin kayo.” (We are here for you, and more from our group will come to visit you.)
“I knew you would come.” This was the meaning of Chona’s smile after almost four days of ordeal. This is the grace of Christmas, reaffirming our faith in Emmanuel, God-with-us; renewing our faith in each other knowing that we will be there for each other.
On our Friday trip, I sat with Piolo Pascual in the van. We were discussing what could possibly come next. The relief work is necessary, but it has to go beyond this. It has to be a renewal of faith in each other, that in all things, always in our hearts we say, “I knew you would come.” Say it to one another and to our God, Jesus whose coming we remember and celebrate today.
Christmas blessings!