Typhoon Fengshen crossed central Philippines on Saturday.  Here in Benguet Province we didn’t have horrible weather to suggest that a hurricane was lashing the Philippines with rain and causing tremendous flooding.  But I read on the Internet of the storm and the calamities that it’s causing.  I was saddened.  The world has so much suffering, and this nation has seen so much suffering.

I have been shocked and dismayed at what I’ve read of insurrection in Mindanao each week.  Muslim terrorists demand a separate Islamic state within the Philippines.  I feel for the victims of strife, abductions, rapes, murders and all the anxiety and grief down there.  It’s so ugly and stomach-turning.  120,000 Filipinos have been killed.  I think that the poor people of the Philippines have suffered enough at the hands of Spanish overlords and Japanese invaders.  Must they slaughter each other?

All the suffering wrought by rebels and the army down there is man-made and avoidable.  But this storm and all the havok and suffering that it has wrought is a ‘natural disaster.’  There’s nothing that we can do to prevent hurricanes.  We can’t divert them away from our islands.  The destruction caused by hellacious wind, heavy, relentless rainfall and flooding can’t be prevented by the poor residents of this land.

I have felt such empathy for the Filipinos.  More than a hundred people were reported missing or dead (drowned) in Iloilo Province.  Many villages and barangays were submerged, and Filipinos were stranded on their homes’ roofs Friday and Saturday without food, water or shelter from cold rain.  Click here for a BBC News photo essay: Typhoon Fengshen

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Though the hurricane is a force of nature that we can’t affect, what can we say about the passenger ferry that set sail after the typhoon warning on Friday?  Criminal negligence!  People apparently prize money more than others’ lives.  Filipinos were apparently so much more interested in earning some pesos than interested in safeguarding their ship and the lives of their fellow citizens.

President Arroyo has demanded that the Coast Guard tell her why Princess of The Stars was allowed to leave port on Friday when they knew that a typhoon was approaching.

Why weren’t three dozen survivors found in less than a day after the ferry capsized?  Shocking, unnecessary, avoidable loss of life and the grief induced in family members or those who’ve perished almost makes me sick. Click here to see a quick photo essay: Ferry capsizes and kills 700 Filipinos