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disaster, donate, flood, New Social Media, philippines, rain, red cross, relief, social media, storm
Today, I was finally supposed to go job-hunting with my friend in Makati (one of the country’s business districts) but all our plans changed when we woke up early in the morning and tuned in to the news. Apparently, despite the lack of typhoon signals (we are only affected by the southwest monsoon), the rains that have been pouring since typhoon Gener have finally resulted in more rain, overflowing dams and rivers, and floods.
Ayala underpass as of 7:45am, Aug.07 – from Joel Garzota Vmobile (via typhoon watch philippines-blogspot)
This is where I should have been this morning.
This isn’t something new for us, Filipinos. We’ve been through bad storms and floods for as long as I can remember. The recent ones being Milenyo and Ondoy. But then, it really takes a lot for habits to change and for lessons to be learned. Despite everything we’ve seen and experienced before, we’ve all still been careless of our waste disposal that the drainage systems have been clogged. Thus, the occurrence of dangerous and often fatal floods and other disasters.
Las Pinas – Photo by REUTERS/Erik De Castro via @HashLabInc
First time to see this place as flooded as this…
I’m not going to discuss weather conditions and I don’t think I want to wallow into the misery that surrounded the disasters. I guess I just wanted to raise awareness and to let people know just how strong Filipinos are despite tragic circumstances.
If you’re a Twitter user and monitored the trending topics all day, you’d know that issues regarding the situation of the northern part of the country have been populating the list throughout the day. From this alone, I can say just how big of a help social media platforms can be when it came to information dissemination during calamities. It also helped groups to locate people who were stranded and needed rescuing.
She and her group were one of the first who organized rescue and relief operations among affected citizens of the National Capital Region.
However, this does not come without faults. Throughout the day, misleading news had also caused confusion and even panic to a lot of netizens. I, myself, was a victim to the confusing news and I’d say that one thing I need to remind myself is that people should confirm information first. Tweet responsibly.
I also like how the social networks have brought encouragement to many and how posts had managed to highlight the strength of the Filipino character by injecting humor into the situation. I guess just as always, the Filipinos always prefer to smile when it came to hardships and consequences.
Found this via Facebook and I couldn’t help but smile despite everything.
As of the moment, there is still no assurance that tomorrow will bring about sunshine or will ease away the floods but one thing’s for sure. We, Filipinos, are so gonna overcome this.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank our country’s rescuers, news reporters, volunteers, and everyone who have donated/will donate to the people who have been affected by the floods. Together, we can all survive this again.
For everyone who are willing to help and donate, you can give through SAGIP KAPAMILYA (ABS-CBN News) or the Philippine Red Cross.
For fellow Filipinos who have prepaid load and wish to donate to Red Cross, here’s how:
Text RED<space>AMOUNT to 2899 (Globe). Denominations: Globe: 5, 25, 100, 300, 500 or 1000. (http://www.redcross.org.ph/donate)
For SMART subscribers, donate to Red Cross by texting RED<Space>AMOUNT to 4143 (denominations: 10,25,50,100,300,500,1000)
P.S.
Another reminder for everyone. Please keep your pets safe.
This is a photo by my friend, Anne San Pedro where their dog jumped into floodwater even though they wanted to keep it inside the boat. (submitted to YouScoop)
Stay safe, warm and dry everyone! We can do this! 🙂
