‘Bayanihan’ amid the blaze: A love letter to Los Angeles
Sunday, Jan. 12, Los Angeles. The City of Angels. A place of dreams, sunshine, and a unique blend of cultures. For me, it has become more than just a city; it’s home.
Having lived in Zurich, Manila, and various parts of the East Coast–New Jersey as a child and New York as a young adult—Los Angeles stands out. It’s where I’ve put down roots, where my children have grown, and where I’ve experienced the joys and challenges of parenthood.
The City of Angels, with its sprawling parks, endless beaches, and seemingly constant sunshine, offered the kind of life I could only have dreamed of. Days with my family were spent exploring the wonders of the vast city, overlooking the horizon from Griffith Park, hiking the trails of Temescal Canyon with breathtaking views of the Pacific Palisades, and driving along the coast, the Pacific Ocean a constant, shimmering presence. The proximity to both mountains and ocean—a mere hour’s drive away even in notorious LA traffic—is a privilege I never took for granted.
Not just Hollywood
To think, I have lived here for more than two decades. It’s home, and home to so many creatives who arrive from their own hometowns with big dreams, all willing to take a chance on themselves. LA is not just Hollywood. It’s so much more than the industry capital of the world.
For those who also call LA home and are Filipino, there’s Historic Filipinotown, dozens of neighborhood grocery stores that have every kind of Filipino ingredient or Filipino restaurants one needs when homesickness gets the best of us. Out of 365 days a year, you can count on your hand when it rains or when it is unbearably hot, especially for lucky folks like me who live near the marine layer that comes in from the Pacific, which offers cool winds on hot days. There is a reason why the world congregates on Los Angeles, besides the Tinseltown it’s known to be.
But the recent wildfires, fueled by the ferocious Santa Ana winds, have shattered this idyllic image. The once vibrant landscape, a canvas of green hills and sparkling coastline, is now marred by smoke, ash, and the haunting specter of destruction. The air, once filled with the promise of sunshine, is now thick with a suffocating haze days after the fires in the Palisades, Altadena, and Eaton areas that have left acres upon acres in ruin.
This cataclysmic event has left us Angelenos bewildered, confused, and utterly heartbroken. The city we’ve all come to love, a place of boundless possibilities, now faces an uncertain future. The resilience of its people, however, offers a glimmer of hope. In the face of adversity, all communities are coming together, offering support and assistance to those affected.
Collective action
This spirit of collective action, this innate sense of community, reminds me of the Filipino concept of bayanihan–a profound sense of cooperation and communal unity in times of need.
As a certified nonprofit professional, as early as a day after all the wildfires erupted, I was sleepless and deep in thought about what the government, nonprofit, corporate, and private sectors need to do to collaborate on best case solutions. I penned an open letter that I sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Office of the President in hopes that in my own little way, I could provide what I know how to do best—organize across different sectors of society.
The evening the first fires raged in the Pacific Palisades, I had just recovered from a weeklong bout that found me isolated in my room due to COVID after an extended weekend in New York with my teenagers. I went on a walk with my two dogs and my girlfriends Melody Butui and Joana Garel in Manhattan Beach at dusk, and as we were walking toward the Manhattan Beach Pier, we could smell the smoke and see the flames raging past Santa Monica. It was eerie. That an entire hillside was on fire so close to all of us seemed unfathomable.
I drove home in shock and spent that evening glued to the news till dawn, waiting for word that the fires had been contained. But the winds kept getting stronger— we could even hear the howling from outside. As dawn broke, debris and ash covered our backyard, the once green foliage now a mud hue.
More fires
As the week went on, more and more fires had spread to neighboring communities as far as Altadena, Eaton, and even off Sunset Boulevard, exactly where many a times when I was living in West Hollywood, we flocked to climb the ridge toward the Hollywood sign. I got non-stop notifications on my phone. Texts and instant messages checking in on my family’s safety kept coming in. A lot of people I know personally lost power and were under evacuation orders. It continues to be a harrowing experience day after day, minute after minute.
As the weekend closed in, the need to mobilize became increasingly apparent despite a work week that still needed tending to. It was hard to concentrate on anything work-related when we were all anticipating the worst. Everything else seemed trivial compared to the flames ravaging homes and families who have lost everything.
Under the leadership of the senior management teams of Island Pacific Seafood Market, we mobilized hundreds of volunteers through our partnership with SoCal Filipinos, a Facebook group of Filipinos near and far. The logistics of getting truckloads of essentials and the marketing entailed a systematic rollout. That had to be top priority, so I spent Friday driving all across the city, checking in on distribution hubs that could handle high-volume donations as well as finding out from evacuation centers (some as far as Pomona Fairflex and Pasadena) on the protocol for volunteers delivering much-needed items.
The days were exhausting, but they are nothing close to what the firefighters and first responders were having to endure, so we all labored on, coordinating with the American Red Cross, the LA Fire Foundation, and the LA Regional Food Bank.
Donations and volunteers
Spreadsheets for donation requests and volunteer needs started accumulating quickly, and that helped mobilize everyone wanting to help in their own little way.
What I discovered, boots on the ground, is this: A lot of the donation sites around LA County are having to close down the evacuation centers receiving items due to the sheer amount of traffic. Large arenas now look like a swap meet with little organizational systems to receive, sort, and stock donated goods. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on Costco items or goods to drop off for relief, the best-case scenario really is to donate the money to the charitable organizations that are working tirelessly around the clock to mitigate this unprecedented calamity in LA history.
This experience has forced all of us to confront the fragility of our environment and the urgent need for action to address climate change. It’s a stark reminder that the paradise we cherish is not invincible.
As Los Angeles rebuilds, I believe we will emerge stronger, more mindful of our impact on the environment. We must embrace sustainable practices, invest in disaster preparedness, and prioritize the well-being of all our communities. Los Angeles is home to thousands of hardworking go-getters who are not celebrities with million-dollar homes. The misconception that this isn’t a hard hit for our residents is utterly false and vitriolic.
This is not just a setback; it’s an opportunity to redefine our relationship with this magnificent city, to ensure that the City of Angels continues to shine, even in the face of adversity. Through the bayanihan spirit, our community will continue to rally compassionately for everyone devastated by these wildfires. #LAStrong
