#MINDANAO By JOHN TRIA John Tria The last three weeks have been perhaps the most eventful in our history. The Iran conflict, the Taal eruption, and now the Novel Coronavirus are disruptions out of nowhere that grabbed our attention, keeping us glued to our smartfone screens as we watched these unfold. While these events brought out the selfless behavior in many, it also squeezed out a lot of prejudice, xenophobia, and this nasty tendency to politicize natural events. In particular what is most disappointing is how perfectly mature, educated adults degenerate into trolls politicizing a virus, a calamity, or conflict to fit their false prejudged notions of people or support their political agenda. They go down to the level of blaming certain people or cultures for the misfortune, or blame others for not helping enough. Useless negativity? You bet. That it emerges from some in the educated classes is even more disappointing. Rather than marshal their talents and exercise leadership to build up capacities and enforce helpful attitudes, they act like brats feeding the frustration. We see a lot of it going around as social media has empowered many thoughts that heretofore were left as tendencies our better angels thought best to suppress. Sadly, we have been cultured in a media culture that likes to cultivate a superiority of certain values and demonize the things they do not understand, and fuel our tendencies toward prejudice that exalts their own values. It is about time we expose these and deal with them. The truth is that we are all humans no matter what class, religion, or culture we belong to, subject to suffering and capable of loving, growing. No one is above the other simply because of their class, origin, or politics. Cultured superiority, that tendency think oneself above others, is a dying tendency. Its time this is thrown out. Moving forward, it matters that we self-criticize the tendency to think ourselves superior because of our origin or our politics. The days of labels and prejudice are over. Just because people are different does not mean they are bad, wrong or inferior to us. Just because their politics are different, or do not fit the models we are used to does not make them less than our own. Since millions now have the power to speak out online, telling that to ourselves is speaking truth to power.

A STRONG ECONOMY and SENSE OF COMMUNITY CAN WEATHER CALAMITIES

The downgrade of the alert level of the Taal Volcano is indeed welcome news. Already, thousands of families not living in the permanent danger zones can resume normal lives, get commerce flowing again, some agriculture activity to replenish food stocks. It is inspiring to see people rising up from adversity. With this, we implore the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Trade and Industry at the regional level to work with the local governments to ensure adequate stocks of food, including buffer supplies. I believe local chambers of commerce and business groups will be more than happy to ensure these. Nonetheless, it is time to thank the many who contributed. The flood of donations from many, including the Mindanao provinces and Bangsamoro communities that sent relief supplies to augment government efforts are greatly appreciated. A new sense of Bayanihan has emerged. It should not stop. It is this new sense of community that will allow us to weather future calamities and deal with crises that seem to be coming our way with greater frequency. For reactions: facebook.com/johntriapage