For many of us, global warming and climate change were only trendy catch phrases for the environmentally-inclined. I too admit that I almost never gave it more than a passing thought.Yes I was aware of what was happening throughout the world - how forest cover were disappearing by the thousands of hectares every year, how polar bears were drowning because their homes on the ice shelves floating on the Arctic waters were breaking apart leaving them stranded on slowly melting little icebergs, or how shocking and extreme weather conditions were destroying lives and properties all over the world.
But I never really cared, until late last year.
On that fateful day of November 30th 2006, global warming, climate change and all those fancy catch-phrases became a grim and tragic reality right before our very eyes. Probably the worst typhoon ever to hit the country in decades bore its full fury upon this puny little peninsula called Bicol. No one will ever forget how strong and angry the wind was and how the blinding torrents of rain lashed without mercy for hours on end.
We thought it would never stop. When the winds and the rain died down, the enormity of the disaster slowly dawned among those who survived – shattered homes, shattered lives, whole villages erased from the map, hundreds missing and hundreds dead.
Now, only a few weeks after that dreadful day, my home province is still trying its best to recover from the misfortune that befell it. Questions and fears race through my head, will it happen again, or rather, when will it happen again? Are we ready to face yet another disaster of this magnitude? Now that we have experienced the full wrath of nature, will we start caring or do we fall again into complacency only to be shaken by another rude awakening?
