In the midst of Haiyan’s destruction, I was unaware of the possibility that things might end worse than expected. At that time, I was sitting on my bed and just waiting for the light pour of the rain to stop. Visayas is very far from where I am but I was ignorant of the fact that the light rain on my end must have been a hundred more times stronger there. Back in my hometown, my mother called to tell me that I better stay in the city for the weekends because the winds are really strong that windows look like they were about to break.

Days have passed and I’ve watched videos posted on YouTube and those shared on Facebook. Metal roofs were flying, cars were being dragged to nowhere by the flood, trees bent at an incredible angle and people scared to their wits as they hold on to their dear lives. I was used to seeing such things. I was used to knowing that just a few weeks before, a typhoon had come and now another one comes to destroy something the previous one forgot to step on, and then another one will come in a few weeks or even days. But I didn’t expect that Haiyan would leave absolute misery behind.

I remember what one woman said while I was eating at a restaurant near my dorm, “I guess there really are no rich or poor people when it comes to disasters such as these.” Right now, Filipinos in the affected areas, whether rich or poor before Haiyan came, were all at a loss, starving and thirsty, homeless and scared for what is to come. News has it that they had resorted to robbing the supermarkets and other houses that are still more or less intact. A post on Facebook regarding a text message from a victim shared that people were being shot as they attempt to rob. Women risk being raped the longer they stay there. It’s a real life Hunger Games happening there – people are doing whatever they can to survive and yet some government officials use it to their advantage: putting their names in bags of relief goods as if people who receive them should remember their name for being considerate enough to give them something to eat. Even with so many people handing donations for the survivors, officials still have the guts to take it for themselves.

Honestly, I don’t know what to feel about all this. I was grateful that different countries all around the globe for having helped our country in so many ways, yet it’s disappointing how our own people are pretending to be ignorant of the well-being of others or even just being stubborn about not leaving their homes and evacuating in the first place. But there’s no use blaming other people because the damage was already done, what’s important is that we learn from what happened – that money won’t do us any good, money can’t save us from disasters, and it is our discipline and attitude toward what is happening. We shouldn’t be separated by our social status, and we shouldn’t be ignorant because of power. When people from all around the world can unite because of a big disaster that destroyed a third-class country, then shouldn’t we be able to unite even without destruction nudging us into action?