instability - geological and political

"stable" does describe the philippines, not in any sense of the word.

a little while back, it rained for two weeks straight down in leyte (the next biggest island just southeast of luzon, where we are). the ground was saturated and caused huge mudslides in the hill villages there. thousands of people's homes were buried and hundreds of people were killed when it happened. since it all happened in a village on a different island, almost no one in manila seemed to really care that it happened. it's a pretty common attitude here to ignore things that don't directly impact you.

and people quickly forgot about the mudslides when politics closer to home got messy again. our president gloria macapagal arroyo relieved a marine commandant of his post. this did not make the marines happy, he was a well-liked and respected guy. the marines have guns and tanks and some political influence and they decided to use it. president gma is falling more and more out of favor and the marines thought it was a good time to try for another "people power" - when the country nonviolently ousts the ruler. this all happened the week of the 20th anniversary of the first people power when the country kicked marcos out in 1986.

well, the marines couldn't raise enough support for their cause. gma isn't directly impacting enough people for them to care. but she did respond with controversial proclamation 1017! this basically put the country in a state of emergency and gave her the right of martial law. people weren't mad before, but they were mad about that.

a week later, all is pretty much settled down again. the president isn't oppressing anyone. relief work is moving forward down south. we got a day off of school. back to being stable... for now.