Exactly one year ago, the island of Bohol snapped from beneath, rocking the very foundations of our faith and fate as a people.
In less than a minute, I saw our stone churches reduced into rubble, homes crumbled and toppled, lives lost, families shattered, dreams interrupted.
While today, I shiver still, as I remember the people we lost – the kids crushed by a falling wall (the only concrete wall of their house), the farmer pinned down by a falling debris from a chocolate hill, the churchgoers buried under centuries-old rubble , fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, friends, classmates, colleagues, neighbors, strangers – and I shudder still, as I remember the earthquake, the 7.2 magnitude swaying of the ground, the eerie crackle of breaking earth, the raging groan of the tumbling hillside, the fierce seething of the sea waters, and the uneasy trembling of our hearts – I quiver more in rapture of the spirited humanity that engulfed the whole of Bohol during those most trying of times.
Padayon sa pagbangon, Bohol.
