I caught a glimpse of anger and frustration on television last night as I was watching the news. It was an infectious rage, one that seemed to leap out of the television and straight into the depths of your sanity. A woman in her thirties was fired with ire. She stormed her way to an office of Sulpicio Lines after hearing the news about the tragic incident. At first, she was unable to barge her way into the office as it was locked from the inside which, apparently, left the security guards outside the doors, helplessly confronting a barrage of spite from the tormented relatives of the victims from a catastrophe which was none of the guards' doing.
I'm tempted to say it's all in a day's work for the security personnel of the company, owing largely to the fact that the past two decades stand as testimonies to how the naval transportation company brought an end to thousands of innocent lives. At the least, five marine vessels of Sulpicio lines have already caught a taste of deadly tragedies in the seas. Up to this day, the company and its ships are still cruising the open waters of the country, with or without typhoons standing in their way. For all the deaths involved, how in the world it is possible that the shipping company has been constantly cleared of any heavy criminal offense remains an irony of sorts.
I could only begin to imagine what these families are going through right now. Losing a close relative is perhaps one of the most revealing moments in life where we are thrown at the mercy of some divine providence or fate or the lack thereof, highlighting how powerless we are to steer the reality of what was into a reality which should have been the way we wanted things to turn out in the end. We can only break into a state of hysteria, or paranoia, after the storm has abated, literally and figuratively. We can only burst into a seething rage after the damage has been rubbed in. We can only demand to the heavens, to the gods or to some other cosmic universe to bring back the lives of those whose bodies float around the seas, wandering aimlessly until it hits some distant shore. All these, after reaching the point of no return. We can only do so, and none of these can rewind the turn of events, no matter how dreadening or rejoicing they may be, and lift us to a state of relief.
Which reminds me of the furious female in her thirties exploding into a state of mix emotions, though one can fairly view from the screen the predominance of physical outrage and emotional power while remaining powerless in spite of all these. Typhoon Frank has indeed left in its wake a horrendous sight, enough to mark a chasm in our collective memory as a tropical nation staring right into the Pacific, constantly greeted and grated by storms, whichever comes first. The weathers of the Earth has rarely been kind enough to this country, let alone kinder enough to allow for a spacious room for recuperation after a series of battering rams that come in the form of tumultuous rains and violent winds. It was in 1993 when the most number of tropical cyclones hit this country.
And there's no stopping the saga of storms.
Some of them, too, have even etched a deep scar in the minds of the public who stood in the path of the oncoming onslaught. Typhoon Rosing caused damages to property amounting to more than ten billion pesos, notwithstanding the facts that it took the lives of close to a thousand with thousands more injured left to mourn and hundreds of missing Filipinos who might have never seen broad daylight again. Those things—if by chance or some random force we are only left to surmise on them as mere physical things—happened more than a decade ago, in 1995.
And still, more. There was Typhoon Monang. Milenyo. And all the rest of the tropical storms which have made some of us believe that either there is a God or there is none. Like Typhoon Gloria that, for some reason, was shy enough to enter our country last 2002. There must have been a God doing the works there, or there must have been none at all. Of course, we also have that typhoon of the same name still plaguing this nation which, for some reason, was never shy enough to lie through her teeth by saying that she will not run for presidency but still did back in 2004. There must have been a God or, worse, there must be none at all. There must have only been a Garci doing the works of its magic there. Strangely enough, that's a different story.
And stranger things have happened, too. It was in 1986 when Typhoon Miding went "erratic," in the words of PAGASA. In fact, it went too erratic to the point of criss-crossing the Philippine Area of Responsibility more than once. "It did two exits and two entries" before it finally left elsewhere. PAGASA says Miding was the "longest tropical cyclone to occur", taking 18 days to tango in the seas. What can I say? Two entries and two exits in eighteen days and nights. It must have been the longest quickie ever to be recorded in Philippine atmospheric history. But that's another fanciful story.
As for Typhoon Frank, well, it shares its own moments of madness, too. What with all the lives shoved into the furnace of calamity and danger—which, sadly enough, come together in pairs—as Frank hammered his way, littering this nation with bodies huddled against the cold, braving the tempest while desperately searching for safer grounds. None could virtually escape Frank's harrowing cataclysm and seemingly erratic movement, not even the 23,000 ton ship MV Princess of the Stars.
Which brings us back to the story of the frantic woman. Well, she had all the reasons in the world to turn frantic and hurl her harpoons right smack at Sulpicio Lines. That is human tendency. That is human nature. But more than that, she has all the more reasons in this universe to turn to everybody else and plead for the body, or bodies, from whoever finds those who lost their lives after abandoning the ship or sinking altogether with it. She has all the more reasons, soberly sane and sanely sober, to seek comfort in what hopefully will be a sighting of the deceased, no matter how sorry and heartbreaking, no matter how bloated their bodies and how pale their skins are.
And so the urgency of recovering the bodies is as necessary as air to lungs and blood to brain, just so to take refuge in those lifeless bodies that, at the end of the day, will find peace in wooden coffins. That weighs more than human compuction. That amounts to elating a small fraction of their—no, our—lives if only to push back into our thoughts that life must go on even in times of rage and in times gone berserk, life will go on even in the plain sight of death.
I don't know how the woman I saw in the evening news will go on with her life. I don't know how she will react upon seeing her relative's body with death written all over it, given that she has already shown much fury while the victim's body is yet to be found. But I do know she's as good, or as bad, as a victim herself. Kind of makes me think and believe that, truly, hell hath no fury than a woman scorned. To this day, there are few survivors who were fortunate enough to live. And tell the tale.
I'm tempted to say it's all in a day's work for the security personnel of the company, owing largely to the fact that the past two decades stand as testimonies to how the naval transportation company brought an end to thousands of innocent lives. At the least, five marine vessels of Sulpicio lines have already caught a taste of deadly tragedies in the seas. Up to this day, the company and its ships are still cruising the open waters of the country, with or without typhoons standing in their way. For all the deaths involved, how in the world it is possible that the shipping company has been constantly cleared of any heavy criminal offense remains an irony of sorts.
I could only begin to imagine what these families are going through right now. Losing a close relative is perhaps one of the most revealing moments in life where we are thrown at the mercy of some divine providence or fate or the lack thereof, highlighting how powerless we are to steer the reality of what was into a reality which should have been the way we wanted things to turn out in the end. We can only break into a state of hysteria, or paranoia, after the storm has abated, literally and figuratively. We can only burst into a seething rage after the damage has been rubbed in. We can only demand to the heavens, to the gods or to some other cosmic universe to bring back the lives of those whose bodies float around the seas, wandering aimlessly until it hits some distant shore. All these, after reaching the point of no return. We can only do so, and none of these can rewind the turn of events, no matter how dreadening or rejoicing they may be, and lift us to a state of relief.
Which reminds me of the furious female in her thirties exploding into a state of mix emotions, though one can fairly view from the screen the predominance of physical outrage and emotional power while remaining powerless in spite of all these. Typhoon Frank has indeed left in its wake a horrendous sight, enough to mark a chasm in our collective memory as a tropical nation staring right into the Pacific, constantly greeted and grated by storms, whichever comes first. The weathers of the Earth has rarely been kind enough to this country, let alone kinder enough to allow for a spacious room for recuperation after a series of battering rams that come in the form of tumultuous rains and violent winds. It was in 1993 when the most number of tropical cyclones hit this country.
And there's no stopping the saga of storms.
Some of them, too, have even etched a deep scar in the minds of the public who stood in the path of the oncoming onslaught. Typhoon Rosing caused damages to property amounting to more than ten billion pesos, notwithstanding the facts that it took the lives of close to a thousand with thousands more injured left to mourn and hundreds of missing Filipinos who might have never seen broad daylight again. Those things—if by chance or some random force we are only left to surmise on them as mere physical things—happened more than a decade ago, in 1995.
And still, more. There was Typhoon Monang. Milenyo. And all the rest of the tropical storms which have made some of us believe that either there is a God or there is none. Like Typhoon Gloria that, for some reason, was shy enough to enter our country last 2002. There must have been a God doing the works there, or there must have been none at all. Of course, we also have that typhoon of the same name still plaguing this nation which, for some reason, was never shy enough to lie through her teeth by saying that she will not run for presidency but still did back in 2004. There must have been a God or, worse, there must be none at all. There must have only been a Garci doing the works of its magic there. Strangely enough, that's a different story.
And stranger things have happened, too. It was in 1986 when Typhoon Miding went "erratic," in the words of PAGASA. In fact, it went too erratic to the point of criss-crossing the Philippine Area of Responsibility more than once. "It did two exits and two entries" before it finally left elsewhere. PAGASA says Miding was the "longest tropical cyclone to occur", taking 18 days to tango in the seas. What can I say? Two entries and two exits in eighteen days and nights. It must have been the longest quickie ever to be recorded in Philippine atmospheric history. But that's another fanciful story.
As for Typhoon Frank, well, it shares its own moments of madness, too. What with all the lives shoved into the furnace of calamity and danger—which, sadly enough, come together in pairs—as Frank hammered his way, littering this nation with bodies huddled against the cold, braving the tempest while desperately searching for safer grounds. None could virtually escape Frank's harrowing cataclysm and seemingly erratic movement, not even the 23,000 ton ship MV Princess of the Stars.
Which brings us back to the story of the frantic woman. Well, she had all the reasons in the world to turn frantic and hurl her harpoons right smack at Sulpicio Lines. That is human tendency. That is human nature. But more than that, she has all the more reasons in this universe to turn to everybody else and plead for the body, or bodies, from whoever finds those who lost their lives after abandoning the ship or sinking altogether with it. She has all the more reasons, soberly sane and sanely sober, to seek comfort in what hopefully will be a sighting of the deceased, no matter how sorry and heartbreaking, no matter how bloated their bodies and how pale their skins are.
And so the urgency of recovering the bodies is as necessary as air to lungs and blood to brain, just so to take refuge in those lifeless bodies that, at the end of the day, will find peace in wooden coffins. That weighs more than human compuction. That amounts to elating a small fraction of their—no, our—lives if only to push back into our thoughts that life must go on even in times of rage and in times gone berserk, life will go on even in the plain sight of death.
I don't know how the woman I saw in the evening news will go on with her life. I don't know how she will react upon seeing her relative's body with death written all over it, given that she has already shown much fury while the victim's body is yet to be found. But I do know she's as good, or as bad, as a victim herself. Kind of makes me think and believe that, truly, hell hath no fury than a woman scorned. To this day, there are few survivors who were fortunate enough to live. And tell the tale.
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