Soundbytes

A tragedy waiting to happen. We have read and heard this phrase to describe two separate catastrophes in two areas miles apart in a span of two weeks. This depiction of the ULTRA Stampede and the Southern Leyte landslide just makes these two calamities all the more heartbreaking and yes, tragic. The thought that disasters such as these two should have been prevented and lives would have been spared just leaves you weak in the knees. If I may borrow General Querol’s reaction upon raiding the Pasig drug den, how more than seventy people died in a stampede and how an entire barangay just cease to exist are precisely the things that are incomprehensible. Hopefully the future of our nation is not the biggest tragedy waiting to happen.

Kailan lang. Last Sunday an aunt from Hongkong came home and everybody flocked to her place in Cavite for your typical Filipino welcome rites. My two sisters and I rode with my other aunt because my mom and eldest sister were assigned to the airport. This meant that for at least a whole hour, we’ll be listening to old ladies’ stories. On the way we stopped by Baclaran seaside market to buy prawns. One of my aunts, also a balikbayan, remarked howcome in the past they make it a point to hear mass at Baclaran Church when it is so far. My other aunt replied that because it is miraculous. She went on to say that before our grandmother together with her two closest sisters used to go to Baclaran and one time all three of them were victimized by pick-pockets. I asked whether this happened when my grandma and her sisters were not yet married. My aunt answered, “Hindi. Kailan lang”. My sisters and I all burst out in laughter because all three of those grandmas are dead already with my own grandma not being around for almost twenty years now.

Common decency. When the riots and embassy torching will end remains everybody’s guess. The West should understand that the globalization which they have embraced and successfully propagated made possible this kind of global demonstration of fury against a local newspaper caricature. They should be the first to know that given the internet and cable tv, their audience has ceased to be the 5 million or so Danish people. Responsibility and respect are virtues we know so well and definitely we can use more of in this time of borderlessness and regionalism. Whatever the meaning of the satire is, there is no harm being more conscious of other people’s sensibilities especially in the media industry.