I write in this column to argue for the necessity of a third strike to seek justice for the death of Doc Gerry Ortega, environmental leader, media practitioner, and good governance and accountability advocate from the province of Palawan.

Riding over the crest of enormous popular support President Aquino pledged to run after public officials during the last administration who are guilty of corruption and other chicanery in public office. Many construed this as referring to former president Arroyo. For President Aquino, she is indeed Prometheus incarnate.

Day one of the impeachment trial started at 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon of January 16, 2012. The presiding Senator-Judge Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile formally opened the proceedings enjoining his fellow senators of the importance of performing their solemn task that the sovereign people, through the Constitution, have reposed upon them.

Last week, I shared Janna Faith Dagawasan’s account of her Sendong experience, which many readers have confirmed to me to be both heartbreaking and inspiring. I continue in this vein in today’s column before I address root causes, accountability and what we need to do next. The foundations for rebuilding destroyed communities are faith, hope and trust. Without these, no amount of work can help us move on.

I write this two-part column from my hometown Cagayan de Oro. This city and its neighbor Iligan have not yet recovered from the devastating impacts of Sendong with natonal and government agencies still overwhelmed and struggling to get their acts together. I repeat again what I have said countless times: while the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 was an advance by shifting the policy framework from disaster response to risk reduction, Congress’s failure to create a cabinet-level agency to lead and coordinate, at the national level, the implementation of disaster risk reduction in the country has been, pardon the pun, disastrous.

This has not been the most normal Christmas. Indeed, because of Sendong, this year’s celebration has been more subdued than usual. Still, the meaning of Christmas has not been diminished; in fact, for me, and I suspect for many disaster survivors, it has become more meaningful.