Typhoon Basyang and the "Plight" of the People

Typhoon Basyang was a certain surprise for most Filipinos. A couple of days after being told that there were no signs of a typhoon hitting our shores in the next few weeks, viola! classes were suspended and worse, no electricity. Unlike most of my countrymen, I HATE pointing fingers. Why in God's name do we always have to look for someone to blame? It's a natural calamity! Can't you even remember a basic lecture in our grade school class? Typhoons are named after women because of their erratic behavior. It's really not easy to predict where, when, and how strong it will hit us. I know there are apparatus to help us with this matter, but no matter how advanced our technology is, it will not stop the typhoon from hitting us hard.

Let's say they have predicted a typhoon's strength and direction, will it help strengthen our roof or our infrastructures? Will it prevent power outages and floods? NO. The storm signal was raised in some areas, while other neighboring locations were spared from the list; do we put our guards down knowing that the said alarm signals are only a couple of kilometers away from us? NO. Didn't we learn anything from Ondoy? We should always be vigilant.

I just hope people would stop pointing fingers at others and reflect upon their own actions (or worse, INaction). The need to put the blame on people ASIDE from ourselves is perhaps the greatest obstacle in Philippine development. Self accountability and the desire to COLLECTIVELY rise up the ladder of success is sorely missing in our masses. We must not pin all our hopes in one person even if that person CLAIMS that he can save you from poverty. As long as you yourself do not make a move to alleviate your own situation, nothing will change. The Filipino culture of "crab mentality" is definitely a scary thing. It is something that I hope will be put into the bin and never recycled. Why can't we look at a person who is rising to the top and say "I want to be like him" instead of "He cheated, that's why he got there." I mean, honestly...WTF?!