Breanna Keith P. Gabutin
Abellana National School Junior Journo
Cebu has always been a city that wakes early. Before sunrise, the markets buzz, jeepneys rattle down familiar routes and the world hums its routine. But then came the recent typhoon, and suddenly the city felt small against nature again. Streets drowned faster than we could name them, rivers claimed land that once belonged to us, and for a moment the world shrank into one instinct: survive.
There is a particular stillness that follows a storm in Cebu. The kind that feels heavy, as if the clouds themselves are tired. The recent typhoon left us with that silence — not of peace, but of people catching their breath after holding it for hours.
We have lived through storms before. We’ve grown up with warnings and the familiar routine of filling buckets with water before the power flickers out. But this one felt different. Not just because of its rain or wind, but because of what it revealed: that even the strongest communities can feel fragile when the earth shakes, when the sky darkens, when floods crawl into homes faster than prayers can be whispered.
We cannot call it “normal” that each heavy rain turns worry into instinct. We cannot shrug as though storms are simply inconveniences we must endure. Preparing is not panic but rather it is respect for the lives beside us and the home beneath our feet.
Climate change is no longer a debate — it is the rain hitting our roofs harder each year, the floods rising faster, the skies changing without waiting for permission. Cebu must adapt not only in spirit but in structure. Compassion will always be our strength, but infrastructure must be our shield.
Cebuanos are always praised for being strong, but strength shouldn’t be the bandage we keep using because the wound refuses to be treated. Resilience does not mean we should forever endure. It means we deserve better preparation, better systems and leadership that remembers storms even when the sun is shining.
When the sky finally cleared, life didn’t snap back instantly — but it began again. Slowly. Quietly. The same way the rain started: with people stepping outside, sweeping their driveways, checking on relatives, boiling water, wiping windows and whispering thanks under their breath.
That’s Cebu: built on mountains, surrounded by sea, strengthened by people who know how to care even when they have nothing else to give.
The storm has passed. But memories stay and lessons wait to be taken seriously. Let this be the time we learn, the time we prepare, not just endure. Let this also be the storm we remember not for the damage it brought, but for the change it should inspire.
Because storms will come again.
And next time, survival should not be the only story we tell.