March 11 Tsunami in Japan: Why this has happened?

March 11, 2011

I went into the kitchen to eat snacks, and I saw my relatives’ eyes glued in the TV screen. I looked up to see what was so important, and I saw Tsunami and an 8.9 intensity earthquake in Sendai, Japan. I ended up online checking on my friends Marisol Peralta and Marielen Borlaza-Sugawara. And just like my relatives that time, it was all over the Internet and Facebook. With a rosary in hand, I started to say a prayer for them as well as for the Filipino communities in Japan. 

There was so much to be done—bodies to be found, debris to be picked up. But what impacted me the most were the people on the news asking about their missing family members. Since that day, I feel like many of us are still searching for an answer, wanting those missing bodies found, wanting the Sendai and Fukushima Islands restored like the whole thing never happened. And with it thousands of innocent lives, their hopes and dreams for the future ended. Yet there were people left behind to find light from underneath the rubble.

I know the Tsunami has ruined lives and directly affected my friends. I have been more fortunate than most, and some say that I have nothing to complain about (and sometimes I couldn’t agree more). A priest once said in his sermon, why did God allow disasters such as these? He wants to introduce doubt to the people. Temptation in itself wasn’t bad, but giving in to such is a sin. We had to go through earthquakes (like in New Zealand), an Ondoy like super typhoon in our country and Japan’s killer Tsunami to understand that despite Japanese technologies and industries, the people still needs to know that there is GOD. Yet, I know that March 11^th has taught me, life lessons I have learned from the courage, faith and strength of others, all these and more, I will carry into the future.