“What made us dream he would comb grey hair?” Irish poet and 1923 Nobel Laureate William Butler Yeats wrote of a friend—and the “discourtesy of death.” A week after Tropical Storm “Sendong” hit, Mindanao deaths bolted to 1,249.

When New Year dawns, other victims won’t “comb grey hair.” Exhausted rescue workers still stumble across bodies  in the muck and debris. “Even the (corpse) sniffing dogs are tired,” regional disaster council chief Ana Caneda noted.

New Year’s Day 2012 will find more than 376,000 people displaced by the storm and floods. Almost 55,000 people still huddle in crowded makeshift evacuation centers in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, as government scrambles to build homes. Potable water is in short supply.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/20129/grandchildren%E2%80%99s-grey-hair