Imagine you’ve just seen your life’s work torn to pieces. You can’t blame anyone for it: no scapegoats, no revenge, no way to wrap your mind around what was essentially being at the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t your fault. Millions felt like this last week in the Philippines. As the death toll rose and the winds destroyed everything in their path, people knew it wasn’t over. There was another storm on the way: one that would last years and leave much more devastation than the one that just passed.
A similar circumstance was seen in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. When the currency of rubles was discontinued, princes became paupers and millionaires joined beggars on the street within days. Suicides were rampant in the territories that the Union had annexed, and many people despaired over what they would do next. Their life savings were no longer recognized. As Lord Beckett from Pirates of the Caribbean would say, “Currency is the currency of the realm,” and there was no value left in rubles. Systems fell apart, lives and families were destroyed, and the nation crumbled. The years that came after were even harder, as the return to normalcy was a long, tedious journey that would forever be labeled as a “work in progress.”
The Philippines was left aghast after this devastation ripped apart their country. Communication systems were torn to shreds by high winds, and people who’ve been separated from their loved ones have no idea how to get back to a safe base. An entire nation doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. Building up from this confusion is similar to reconstructing the thousands of acres of infrastructure that has been utterly decimated by Typhoon Haiyan.
Such a situation is not completely comparable to what happened in the USSR in 1991; however, it is very much comparable to what happened in December of 2004 in Southeast Asia. As a massive tsunami in the Indian ocean took to the shores of nations such as Sumatra, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and India, lives were lost by the thousands. Those who survived realized soon enough that the tsunami was just the first of many hurdles to come. These countries needed all the help they could obtain in order to get back on their feet.
Therefore, the need for international aid to the Philippines is not in question. The question is how to best provide the aid. International relief efforts have already started. The European Union has pledged €3m, and the U.S. has reportedly decided on $100,000 for relief supplies. Eighty U.S. Marines will be deployed from Okinawa to Manila to aid with logistics issues in the Philippines’ army.
However, there’s something rather embarrassing in all of this. In 2012, the lead negotiator of the Philippines’ delegation asked international leaders and humanitarian organizations to aid with storm efforts so that something like this storm would never happen again. I’ll leave you now to make your own decisions, after watching the short and emotional video.
