Images of vast destruction always make us look. But there are also powerful stories and incredible insight behind pictures of quietly restored lives in the wake of a disastrous calamity. Aside from its journalistic significance, these images carry out anthropological value more than anything else. It takes us inside the habits of human nature, on how they try to recover as well as the tendencies involved in recovery. In the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban City, a photograph of a small room can reveal as much as an aerial shot of an island ravaged by the storm.
Amidst the memorable images that we have come to associate with Typhoon Haiyan—images of suffering and heroism alike, portraits of desolation, grief, and even death—the silent representations of objects, debris, uninhabited rooms and ruins can be just as equally telling as the depictions of townsfolk finding their way among the wreckage.
There is also a portrait that reveals itself, although uninhabited, inside a small room that has barely survived, buoyed by the articles that make up a kitchen: brooms, plastic cups, thermos, towels, and a calendar bannered by a poster of the holy image of Christ, to keep the number of days in check since the grueling ordeal. In another room, a makeshift shelf stands, and what’s left from a collection of stuffed toys sit together with a figurine of a saint and the Holy Virgin. In another empty room with bare walls a lone window with its curtain rolled up lets in the welcome sight of sunlight after the storm, while on its ledge sits a small sculpture of Jesus with arms suspended wide in the air—a crucifix that has lost its cross.
Each room, although absent with real faces, becomes an indirect portrait of the people of Tacloban and their desire to rearrange their lives through the re-ordering of what’s left of their possessions. What lies constant in these images is the presence of sacred symbols, which were turned into sacred relics after surviving the wreckage. These figures and images become the centerpieces of a culture devoted to their faith. From across the pile of debris, they inevitably stand out. Their survival among the rubble can generate various religious connotations, and can convey one of the most profound, emotional, psychological, and spiritual attachment a person can ascribe into an inanimate object. Even a dethroned or decapitated statue of a saint is likely to be treated with unchanged veneration, and is unlikely to be left behind as mere waste.
Doors, which barely stayed on its hinges, are protected with crosses and novenas. Broken-down walls are made into temporary shrines for the image of the Holy Child, and for other patron saints where folk can gather their offerings. An image of Buddha takes the spot on a shelf rack where a television set might have stood. These are the designs and compositions made by the people dwelling in these rooms. The job of the photographer is to frame them, and to accommodate the public within her gaze. These are truths that surpass the actual person’s disproportionate narration of events. These are stories told through the enigma of objects, which can ultimately generate countless more truths in their vivid representation of the person’s living condition and state of mind. Such, is also a vivid and candid representation, not of destruction, but how the people of Tacloban wish to recuperate from ruin.
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