I’ve always seen myself as a bit of a daring person. Not a full-on daredevil, but if you ask my friends, I’ve usually been the first to try something risky. Heights? Barely made me flinch. Winding, rocky roads on an overloaded habal-habal? Been there, done that. Walking alone in the dark? I didn’t think twice.
Fear, for the most part, was never a constant companion.
But as I’ve gotten older (and maybe just a little wiser), I’ve started looking back at some of the things I used to do in my twenties and thought, Wow, that was a stupid, stupid thing to do.
And while I don’t have kids (and probably never will), I do have a bunch of cats and dogs under my care. These days, the sense of responsibility I feel for them has grounded me in ways I didn’t expect. I realized that taking care of myself isn’t just about me anymore, it’s about them, too.
So when the recent earthquake struck, and especially the news about ghost projects, crumbling schools, and substandard bridges, something shifted in me. I felt a new kind of fear.
It wasn’t just a disaster I feared. What scared me now was standing on a bridge, enjoying the view, unaware of its fragility.
When I travel, can I trust the safety beneath me?
The Philippines is stunning, no doubt about it. But in a country where corruption runs deep and shortcuts are taken at the expense of safety, beauty can be deceiving.
It’s wild to think that something as simple as crossing a bridge can now feel like a gamble. Because you just don’t know if someone pocketed the budget meant to make that bridge safe.
The revelation about these ghost projects has been in my mind for the past few weeks. Roads that exist only on paper. Schools with walls that crumble after the first shake. Evacuation centers that can’t even withstand the very calamities they’re meant to protect people from. And it makes you wonder: what else has been compromised?
I used to think these things were just unfortunate consequences of living in a developing country. That this was simply the way it was. But it’s not just a matter of progress. It’s a matter of priority. Of people in power choosing to look the other way, or worse, choosing themselves over the lives of others.
This realization has changed the way I travel. I still crave adventure, but now, I find myself asking questions I never used to ask.
Who built this road?
Was this bridge inspected?
Can I really trust this structure to hold?
It's a strange, unsettling kind of awareness. The kind that lingers even when you’re surrounded by beauty.
Because that’s the thing; this country is beautiful. Sometimes heartbreakingly so. You find yourself in a remote town, staring at a view so breathtaking it makes you forget the chaos you left behind. But even then, there’s a voice in the back of your head whispering, “I hope this place was built right.”
It shouldn’t be this way. Safety shouldn’t be a privilege. It shouldn’t be something you have to hope for.
And I don’t have a grand solution to offer. I’m just a regular citizen trying to live responsibly, to travel wisely, and to keep my pets fed and safe. But I do believe that awareness matters.
When the recent earthquake struck my home province of Cebu, I was heartbroken. I still am. The reports of casualties hit differently when it's your own people, your own soil. You think about how ordinary everything must have felt just moments before it happened. Someone was probably sitting down to dinner, laughing with family, maybe scrolling through their phone, maybe tucking their child into bed. And then, in a blink, everything changed.
It’s one thing when Mother Nature takes lives. That’s a tragedy. But it’s another thing entirely when lives are lost because someone cut corners. Because someone approved a building that should’ve never passed inspection. Because someone got paid, but never delivered.
That’s not just tragedy. That’s injustice.
I remember watching a dashcam video that circulated shortly after the quake. Footage from the Mactan Bridge as it shook violently. People were holding on for dear life in their vehicles, trapped in that terrifying moment. And then I saw a comment that stopped me cold:
"Imagine if this bridge was one of those substandard bridges revealed in the ghost projects investigation. Imagine if that was one of them. How many more people would’ve died that night?"
That made me stop for a long time. It wasn’t just a disaster I feared. What scared me now was standing on a bridge, enjoying the view, unaware of its fragility.
And that’s what I can’t un-feel now. The weight of it. The rage of it. The fear that I, or someone I love, could be next. Not because of an earthquake, but because the bridge wasn’t built to survive one.
So I tread carefully now, not just on roads and bridges, but through a country I still deeply love, while holding the heavy truth that some of the most dangerous cracks aren’t in the concrete.
They’re in the system.
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