We are a resilient people. As a poet once said: “A Filipino is pliant like a bamboo. Neither typhoons nor monsoons could break the Filipino spirit; like the bamboo, it sways and bends with nature’s relentless onslaughts, but it refuses to yield or die.”

Our recent experience with typhoon Ondoy reaffirms once again our resilience and our amazing ability as a people to recover from a misfortune. Indeed, our resiliency can even be seen in the faces and behaviors of children playing in our flooded streets.

Here and abroad, natural disasters come and go. And noticeably, natural disasters, calamities and catastrophes have been occurring with greater frequency as the years go by. While many of us are still shaken by the magnitude of the casualty caused by Typhoon Ondoy – there are natural disasters and calamities that are far worse than Typhoon Ondoy.

Let me share with you some awesome natural disasters that happened in the past – to emphasize the point that there were natural disasters that occurred in the past that were worse than Typhoon Ondoy that hit our country.

• Here is an Internet account of the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina written by Borgna Brunner: “Hurricane Katrina slammed into the US Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, destroying beachfront towns in Mississippi and Louisiana, displacing a million people, and killing almost 1,800. When levees in New Orleans were breached, 80% of the city was submerged by the flooding. About 20% of its 500,000 citizens were trapped in the city without power, food, or drinking water. Rescue efforts were so delayed and haphazard that many were stranded for days on rooftops and in attics before help arrived. The city became a toxic pool of sewage, chemicals, and corpses, and in the ensuing chaos, mayhem and looting became rampant — about 15% of the city's police force had simply walked off the job. The 20,000 people who made their way to the Superdome, the city's emergency shelter, found themselves crammed into sweltering and fetid conditions. At a second shelter, the convention center, evacuees were terrorized by roaming gangs and random gunfire. Relief workers, medical help, security forces, and essential supplies remained profoundly inadequate during the first critical days of the disaster.”

• An earthquake with a magnitude of 8.0 struck Shansi, China killing 830,000 people on January 23, 1556;

• An earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 shake off West Coast of Northern Sumatra killing 225,000 people on December 26, 2004;

• Sometime in July, 1201, an earthquake hit eastern Mediterranean. Approximately 1.1 million people were killed, mostly in Egypt and Syria;

• In 1920, there was a drought in the North China that caused 20 million victims and took at least 500,000 lives;

• Mont Pelee Volcano erupted in Martinique, a small French colony in the Caribbean. The explosion wiped out the town of St. Pierre. Of the entire population of 30,000, only two men survived. One of the two survivors was Auguste Ciparis, a 25-year-old black stevedore who was due to be hanged for murder. He was imprisoned in a massively constructed cell. Ciparis lived up to 1929 – earning a living as a side-show attraction in a circus as the Prisoner of St. Pierre, complete with a replica of his cell;

• In 1918, a flu epidemic in the United States killed 675,000 Americans – more than those killed in all the wars of this century combined. There were also other major American epidemics and outbreaks of small pox, measles, yellow fever, typhoid fever, and other medical disasters;

• On November 13, 1970, 200,000 people were killed by cyclone-driven tidal wave from Bay of Bengal in East Pakistan. Over 100,000 were missing;

• On December 15-16, 1999, heavy rains caused catastrophic flooding and mudslides in Northern Venezuela killing an estimated 5,000 to 20,000 people;

• Many of us are familiar with the greatest sea disaster of all times – the sinking of Titanic known as the unsinkable ship. Titanic, a luxury liner sank in its maiden voyage from Southampton Port to New York – due to an iceberg. Of the 2,206 people on board, 1,403 died.

Despite Typhoon Ondoy, we are still blessed! Typhoon Ondoy aftermath could have been worse. Let us continue to be grateful to our Lord God. And let us share our blessings cheerfully with the victims of Typhoon Ondoy.

Be joyful always!