HELPING DOES not end with relief efforts.
This was the main point discussed in a talk on January 25 titled “Life after Ondoy: A Symposium on Rebuilding the Nation.” The symposium discussed efforts to help people after typhoon Ondoy.
“[Helping] has to be a life style, something that is continuous. It isn’t simply a one time, big time event,” said Stephen Suarez (BS CTM ’04), who owns the website “lifeafterondoy.com” that inspired the symposium.
Project Head Joseph Reyes conceptualized the event as part of his thesis. For him, it served as an avenue to create dialogue about relief and rehabilitation.
Apart from Suarez, Political Science lecturer Anne Candelaria talked about the issue of volunteerism during Ondoy. Candelaria is also a lecturer for the Development Studies Department.
Freshman Rhan Simangan recounted her experience with Ondoy. Simangan is both a victim and a volunteer during the flood.
Problem with sustaining effort
For Candelaria, the tragedy reaped by Ondoy has always been there. “We just weren’t aware of it,” she said.
She added that there are different levels of helping—relief and rehabilitation, short-term and long-term, respectively. “There are more people who help during relief operations and less on rehabilitations. The challenge is to make people [continue] after the relief efforts.”
Candelaria enumerated three reasons for volunteers’ discontinued commitment. “There is a need to understand why something has to be done,” she said, adding that continuous dialogue is needed.
Knowing how to sustain passion is also important, she said. “Finally, there is a need to deliver what was promised [of the volunteers].”
Going beyond
Moving on. Stephen Suarez, the keynote speaker of Life After Ondoy talks about what we have to do after the tragedy. | Photo by James Conrad M. Magalon
For Suarez, the issue of Ondoy goes beyond the typhoon. “This is more of an issue between the rich and the poor [and] the presence of a gap between them.”
He used the story of Cain and Abel as an example. When God asked Cain where Abel is, he answered: Am I my brother’s keeper?
“Being a Filipino is simply not just about eating adobo or watching Manny Pacquiao. It is about being responsible for our fellowmen, that we be our brother’s keeper,” Suarez said.
Candelaria also said the challenge is going beyond the usual efforts. “Nation building is [not] just about volunteering [nor] having passion for something but it is about hard work and commitment.”
An ‘I wanna pick a fight mentality’ is needed, said Candelaria, not so much as to create chaos but to stir up change. “We should have this mindset because we can’t just [simply] sit around and do nothing.”
More than mere passion
“I heard these things from my Theo and Philo classes,” said senior Portia Silva on the symposium. “But the speakers took the incident of Ondoy to a friendlier context, which is easily relatable for us.”
For senior Kirstin Leigh Lopez, the talks were enlightening. “It talked about how to make concrete actions not just for the present but how we can all follow through.”
“We don’t exactly need to do something big or something out of our way but with our passion we just have to do what we usually do, focus[ing] our efforts [in] helping others,” said senior Marc Paredes.
Final effort
Reyes said he wanted his thesis to have an impact on people. “I wanted the culmination of my stay here in Ateneo to be something which was socially relevant,” he said. “Since I am not new to volunteer work, I wanted my thesis to be in line with it.”
He wanted to bring Suarez’s site into a more interactive level where there can be dialogue.
“I just hope the next time a similar talk will be done it won’t be limited to Ateneans but rather that it be opened to the public,” Reyes said in mixed Filipino and English.
