Accentuating the Positive, Or Trying

By: Bob Boyer

While sitting outside a café recently with a cup of tea and the newspaper, I accidentally dropped one section of the paper. An elderly gentleman passing by reached down, picked it up, and handed it to me. Before I could say thank you, he said, “any good news in that?” I actually make a practice of looking for good-news stories when reading the local and national papers. Nonetheless I had to tell the gentleman, “not yet.” Readers of this column may remember my 2014 New Year’s Resolution about “accentuating the positive,” as the old World War Two song advised. This can be a tall order at times, and right now is one of those times. Here is what has happened in recent days. I received an email from Beng, a close friend in Manila, telling me about the destructiveness of typhoon Glenda (Rammasun). I read about the shooting down of the Malaysian Flight (MH 17) over Ukraine and the loss of all 298 passengers and crew, including three Filipinos. Just this past Monday, July 28, I read that terrorists on the island of Sulu murdered twenty-one villagers. Two of the wounded have now also died. That is a lot to digest and still come up with positives, but I decided to see if I could find any. I didn’t have to look far to see some definite positives related to Typhoon Glenda. Beng’s initial email about it already gave a hint or two of hope. “Not much rain, thank you,” she said, “but a lot of destroyed homes, and uprooted trees.” When I read further about Glenda in the Philippine Inquirer on line, the report indicated that this was the strongest typhoon of this season in the Manila area. It caused much property destruction and left several thousand without their homes. At the same time, the article noted the following: “Haunted by Super Typhoon Yolanda, which killed thousands, the residents of towns and villages in Glenda’s path cooperated with authorities and were saved from death and injury.” That was good to hear. While checking on Glenda, I came across some related good news. In announcing the forthcoming visit of Pope Francis to the Philippines (January 15-19, 2015), Philippine Cardinal Tagle clearly had Glenda in the back of his mind. “Show him (the Pope) who we truly are, especially the resilience of the Filipinos coming from faith, coming from compassion, coming from bottomless hope.” Later in his announcement, Tagle added, “We who experience an average of 20 to 22 typhoons a year, we can show the world what it means to be pained, to clean up, to stand again and to face another morning.” Powerful and positive words. I have witnessed that resilience and compassion and faith of Filipinos in my times in the country, which makes me wonder about the other two news item I mentioned at the outset, the downing of the Malaysian airliner and in particular the terrorist attack. Because of the continuing fighting between the Ukrainian Army and the Russian-supported separatists, there is little news of any kind. I certainly do not see any silver lining. Some might cite the fact that it shocked European countries into increasing their sanctions against Russia. Perhaps, but they had plenty of other evidence. They didn’t need that tragedy. Finally, the brutal attack by Abu Sayyaf terrorists on Sulu. They ambushed fellow Muslim returning from attending a religious feast ending the sacred month of Ramadan. This challenges any positive interpretations as far as I can tell. In his New York Times report of the attack, Floyd Whaley comes close to a hopeful note. He quotes a Filipino military spokeswoman as suggesting that Abu Sayyaf committed the atrocity in retaliation for “the government’s peace and order campaign.” Ten of the fifty passengers on the two targeted jeepneys were policemen who supported the new peace efforts. If the spokeswoman’s statement is correct, it would suggest that the peace initiative was a threat to the terrorists. Other reports, however, suggest murkier motivations, including a feud between opposing terrorist clans. In any case, the local authority could not protect its people. Ok, I will leave it to the reader to decide if I have managed to accentuate the positive. Do the powerful words of Cardinal Tagle about the resilient and compassionate and faithfilled people somehow offset the atrocities of a small group of terrorists? I think so. Contact Bob Boyer at Robert.boyer@snc.edu and www.sundaysinmanila.com.