Epiphany

“GOODNESS IS self-edifying; ethical living satisfies the conscience; virtue is, as proverbially advertised, its own reward, and don’t look to God for a bonus.”

Thus, the language maven William Safire iterates a moral doctrine in his work subtitled The Book of Job in Today’s Politics.

“Prayer has a value in itself. That’s the flip side of the negative, don’t-look-for-a-material-payoff lesson. The truly religious person, in Joban theology, not only worships God with no payoff in mind but is uplifted by that unselfish love.”

So I rearranged the order of Safire’s paragraph to transition to the point whence this discussion takes off.

PAYOFF TIME. Emphatically tolled across the globe by the devastation wrought by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Notwithstanding the aforesaid Joban precept.   

“We will never forget what the Philippines did for us in 2011.” So was quoted Kenzo Iwakami, the team leader of the Japanese medical mission to Leyte. In reference to the Filipino nation’s contribution to relief efforts at the time Japan was ground zero of the destructive earthquake and tsunami that killed over 15,000 people.

Seconded Dr. Joji Tomioka, sub-leader and medical coordinator for JICA’s medical team for disaster relief: “This time, we have to help you. Because two years ago, you helped us. So this time, this is our turn.”

In what could be its largest military overseas aid deployment to date, Japan has dispatched two warships carrying some 1,000 troops, along with 10 planes and six helicopters to join relief efforts in the Visayas. It has likewise pledged $10 million in aid.

Purely personal payback it was to Kenji Hirakawa who donated 200,000 yen (P87,000) to the relief efforts “for all the troubles my father may have caused to

the Filipino people.”

“My father lies sleeping in a mountain somewhere in Luzon,” Hirakawa said in the letter he sent to the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, qualifying his old man was a member of the Japanese Imperial Army that occupied the Philippines in World War II and never made it back home.

A tug at the heartstrings was that Japanese pre-schooler who went to the Philippine embassy to donate his piggy bank savings.

PAY IT FORWARD.  In 1939, some 1,200 Jews “who otherwise would have almost certainly died in the Holocaust” were given sanctuary in the Philippines.

“The people of the Philippines will have in the future every reason to be glad that when the time of need came, their country was willing to extend a welcome hand.” President Manuel L. Quezon’s word at the time proved prescient, if not prophetic, today.

“A particularly heroic piece of history (that) should be recalled by the global Jewish community, which owes a debt to the island nation.” Wrote Alan H. Gill,  CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, in JTA, the Global Jewish News Source.

And the Jewish nation did. Setting a field hospital right at ground zero within seven hours of the arrival of the Israel Defense Force, its 125 member delegation of medical doctors, nurses, technicians, lab workers treating as much as 300 patients a day. And members of its Homefront Command coordinating logistics comprising over 100 tons of equipment and supplies.  

Aside from treating injuries and ailments, 12 babies have been delivered, the first of whom was named “Israel” in gratitude to the volunteers. Enough to move one to tears.

Writes Gill further: “These efforts now come full circle, especially for one member of our team arriving in the Philippines later this week, Danny Pins. In addition to being one of our development and employment experts, Pins’ mother and grandparents were among the German Jews who fled to the Philippines to seek safe haven in 1938. His posting, in many ways a homecoming despite previous trips to the country, is highly symbolic.”

“Today, in the wake of one of the worst storms in history, with perhaps more than 10,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless, we are fully committed to fulfilling President Quezon’s prophecy and returning the favor to the Filipino people. Not just because we are Jews, the heirs to this nation’s life-saving actions, but because we firmly believe in mutual responsibility and the idea that each individual life is valuable beyond measure.” Beyond mere payback, there rises international solidarity, indeed, One Humanity, most manifest in the Filipino value of kapwa.  

SOLIDARITY AND FAITH. The greatest means to survive, and ultimately triumph over a disaster.

This, the people of Pampanga have shown to the world, rising over the devastation, death, desolation and despair wrought by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, and the lahar rampages that buried whole communities in the aftermath.

“The desire among Kapampangans to help is spurred by our own Pinatubo experience.” So articulated San Fernando Auxiliary Bishop Pablo Virgilio David at the launch last Saturday  of the “Pampanga for Visayas/Palawan” mission which calls on the Kapampangan faithful for donations, the archdiocese’s 94 parishes serving as drop-off centers.

A number of business groups, socio-civic organizations and committed non-governmental of organizations throughout Pampanga are likewise engaged in raising funds and relief goods for the victims of Yolanda.

The Kapampangan community, quoted the Inquirer of the good Among Ambo, is “extra generous because of our awareness that we have to look back and to give back.”

Awareness evolving to sanctifying grace.

Thus Ignatius of Loyola: “…to give and not to count the cost, to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to seek for reward, save that of knowing that we do Your will.”

Hence Francis of Assisi: “…where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy…For it is in giving that we receive.”

Enough to restore one’s trust in the innate goodness of man, to renew one’s faith in his God.

The ravages of Yolanda are an epiphany for the all the world to witness, to experience, to believe.