Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
SAN FRANCISCO: A few weeks ago I was walking around with a dear friend passing by a small shop that sells plants and succulents in the Botanical Gardens of San Francisco. We struck up a short conversation with the owner, mentioning how plants are killed more with care than neglect. The conversation continues to echo in my mind to this day, to ask the same question of people and nations, of how plants, flowers and trees on their own roots and soil can ultimately thrive without care from people as many tend to over-water and unwittingly drown them. It reminded me too of the likes of nations that are in conflict due to countries of power tending to overstep their boundaries, posing as caring just because they feel they can due to the vast amount of surplus resources they can spend without thinking about the need for survival and development. From the recent relations and interventions of the US in Afghanistan to the past world wars, wishing that our past colonizers and oppressors shouldn't have even dared to land on the shores of our island country. Would our nation, society and climate be different or maybe the same if these powerful countries cared less?
Today, the thick winter fog hovers above the festive city of San Francisco in a crisp yet brutal chill. I walk around on the wet pavement of an idyllic cold Christmas night as cafés and restaurants fill with swarms of tourists and visitors from around the world privileged enough to travel amid such uncertain times. Colorful vivid lights decorate the streets as life goes on here unwittingly, whereas halfway across the world, my country the Philippines was recently swept to ground level by this year's strongest storm, Super Typhoon "Odette." Instead of bright glowing lanterns and Christmas trees, a vast field of fallen coconut trees lay on the ground beside thousands of washed up homes in the island provinces of the Philippines, decimated by the untamed wind wrought by the climate crisis, where communities will never remain the same. The lingering memory of the havoc as seen in viral before-and-after stories and photographs brought an inevitable thought of how selfish of me to dare complain of the unfamiliar chilling cold of America, sheltered by the coffers of my privilege, as thousands are left to fend and feed for themselves. I stay here helplessly, comfortably typing, writing and reading, spending the holidays with my family as others are left with nothing. What separates me from the people who have allowed these unending destruction of our communities, when I myself share the same luxury to eat, travel and dare still go home on a cold night to a well-built house.
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