As the strongest typhoon in history to ever hit land, Yolanda(international name: Haiyan) was indeed so strong that its tremendous strength is still manifested in our political landscape.
During its demoralizing and deadly aftermath, when those in power were arrogantly resorting still to politics instead of speedily helping and prioritizing the victims and survivors, the enraged citizenry vowed that, come the succeeding national elections, these reigning political figures who had access to but surprisingly “lost” the millions of dollars poured into the country by international donors would reap the consequences.
True enough, the people fulfilled their promise, punishing these politicos with little or no support at all. In fact, even those good candidates who happened to be merely identified with them likewise reaped that retaliatory gesture, eventually getting what they do not deserve. This they need to realize. Yolanda’s survivors whom they subjected to politicking amid their fresh, painful plight may not comprise the majority, but they had won the hearts of millions among the country’s citizenry.
It’s not that the administration senatorial candidates are the best for having won in the recently-concluded elections. It’s just that the opposition line-up was peopled with the huge antagonists during the Yolanda episode. Surely, the electorates know how to gauge them. If they cannot be trusted with the dying, how can they be trusted with the living? This must have been translated into votes.
So tremendous was Haiyan’s political impact that even up to now, when its anniversary was just observed, people could not help but mention it in gauging candidates who in one way or another had links to the government’s dealings then with the survivors, the victims, and the numerous donations in cash and in kind.
Death’s harvest
Two days after we left for Catbalogan due to the worsening stench in the air that we could no longer stomach, and exactly 5 days after super typhoon Yolanda struck, I decided to come back to the devastated city in hopes of still finding some things in our ruined and freshly flooded house that could still be useful.
It was not, by the way, an easy journey out. We had no plans of leaving Tacloban, though we were just surviving on a pack of wet biscuits that I scavenged from a grocery storehouse that fell apart near the airport. But on the third day since Yolanda came, a brother from Catbalogan, together with his son, took the pains of locating our house in an ocean of trash and debris. He was tearfully overjoyed when he finally found us, still alive, weakened by hunger and thirst, and still in a state of shock.
An older brother of mine that he is, he ordered us to abandon our house and go with him to Catbalogan and stay in their house there while Tacloban was yet in ruins, wallowing in the mud, covered with darkness at night, hungry and thirsty, and cut off from the rest of the world. We left San Jose, Tacloban City at around three in the afternoon under a mixture of alternating sunshine and rain.
Heaps of garbage and debris mixed with dead bodies of humans and animals constantly blocked our way as we laboriously traveled by foot to the area near the San Juanico bridge. Sometimes, we would try to hurdle mounds of trash from which human arms or legs were sticking out, particularly in Brgy. 87, San Jose area. Cadavers had piled up in some corners, such as in the Rotonda crossing, occasionally stirred by haggard-looking people walking to and fro without direction in search of their missing loved ones, their hairs, and clothes blown by the winds that smelt of death and decay.
I thought those were all the dead that were washed ashore, inland. I realized, when I came back to Tacloban, that there were more casualties that may not have been accounted for.
Together with two baggage boys that I hired from Catbalogan, and the owner-operator of the motorboat that I rented, I left Catbalogan at dawn on the 13th day of November 2013. We sailed through Maqueda Bay and passed by Daram Island, Villareal, and Talalora, till we reached the strait between Santa Rita, Samar, and Babatngon, Leyte. As we neared the San Juanico bridge, floating cadavers occasionally appeared. From this bridge up to the Anibong District, said cadavers increased in number such that, when we reached the narrow strait fronting Tacloban City, these lifeless bodies multiplied, indeed.
I came to realize that, when the seawater that the storm surge pushed inland returned to the sea, it had brought with it innumerable bodies of men, women, and children. When we docked on the shore of San Jose and walked down the footpath leading to our house, more and more bodies came into view, littering the field in great numbers.