TRAGEDY OF THE POOR

My heart goes out to all the victims of the St. Bernard, Southern Leyte landslide and their families. Practically one whole barangay got erased from the map in just a matter of seconds. It was so sudden that there was no room for escape. The death toll could not yet be ascertained but rough estimates may reach to more than a thousand. I will no longer dwell on the “search and rescue” side of the story. Let’s leave it up to the media to report on that. However, I’m still wondering why the poor always gets to bear the brunt of these tragedies. Is their grinding poverty not enough to exempt them from man-made disasters and acts of God? If destiny should dictate that a tragedy must occur one way or the other (as nature’s way of curbing population explosion), wouldn’t it make more sense if the ones buried by mud or clobbered by the stampede are the crooks and hoodlums in government? Our problems will certainly get a little lighter, don’t you think?