The miracle that is called “mangroves” By Karen Dinsay When reports of the upcoming SUPER typhoon spread like wildfire in the province of Negros Occidental, the good governor, Alfredo Marañon, Jr. requested his people to take time to pray and ask for divine intervention to shield the province from the wrath of - the predicted to be- the strongest typhoon in the history. The governor firmly believed that prayers can move mountains and calm the storm and so miraculously, it did, in the Province of Negros Occidental. Although the northern part of the province was listed among the areas with signal number 4, the area on which the storm will directly pass, there was no casualty in the area. Houses and other infrastructures were totally and partially damaged, crops were destroyed, fisheries and livestock ruined, and left thousands of Negrenses homeless. The list of the devastation seems endless, but God has mercifully spared the Negrense people. In an island barangay of Molocaboc in Sagay City, people have experienced the hands of God in the form of mangroves. On the eve of the super-typhoon on November 8, 2013, with rain falling, wind howling, roofs flying, houses crashing, trees falling… the people of Molocaboc have despaired for their lives. These nightmarish images of the storm, reducing everything into a rubble, are indelibly imprinted in the minds of the young children and in the hearts of the people of Barangay Molocaboc. On Sunday, when Gov. Marañon personally delivered the relief packs to the barangay, he was astounded to see the water surrounding the shore so red that he thought many people have died during the typhoon. He discovered later that the precious mangroves – marine habitats – that have been planted in the little island for more than three decades to provide breeding areas for the fishes, have been destroyed, the stems twisted and the barks peeled-off, leaving its juices to dissolve into the water, giving it a reddish color that could be mistaken for thinning blood. The wrath of typhoon Yolanda may have destroyed houses and trees but it was the ‘mangroves” that saved the people’s lives in this little island. Just like everybody else after the storm, people are starting to rebuild and just as the sun rises every morning, the people of this island will surely plant again – the miracle that is called ‘mangroves’.*
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 07:21:54 +0000
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