MOVING on after a series of spiting tremors, Mindanaoan finds a lot of positive imputes not common in ordinary days.
Filipino bond: Immediately after the first shock, every Tom, Dick, and Harry found ways to know the condition of their acquaintances from places hit by the strong magnitude. Even the not so close contacts had the chance of knowing each other through the social media, making everyone a friend. Having this vector sum, and with the information from the ground, relief goods were timely gathered, delivered and distributed.
The government response: The occurrences became a litmus test of the local officials on how resilient and prepared every unit in responding unexpected incident. There was a massive evacuation, designated safer ground for the evacuees, coordination for an orderly distribution of sufficient relief goods, and conduct of stress debriefing for both children and adult evacuees. On top of this open service as band aid solution, initiatives are on cue to relocate them to farm sites for their livelihood and provisional domicile.
Unique optimism: While at the temporary shelters, the evacuees are resourceful and optimistic to stand and showed interest to rebuild from nothing.
In the entirety, the best of all good sides of the earthquake was the initiative of some elementary and secondary schools in the region that required each of their learners to provide their own hard hat. Funny to look at but it was true during the Fourth Quarter National Simultaneous Earthquake drill on November 14, 2019.
Wearing hard hat during the earthquake drill did not only taught the children to be ready for such occurrences; it also raised their level of awareness that hard hat is a protective gear worn by a construction team including the supervising engineers who are responsible of the integrity and stability of all vertical structures.
May the wearing of hard hats inspires the young learners to become responsible engineers someday; not only engineers that use hard hat to protect their very own heads, but engineers who build rock-solid and sturdy buildings that could stand on tough earthquakes, and protect all lives who seek refuge in it.