One of the strongest storms to ever make landfall, Typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan, has had a lacerating impact that outstrips the destruction of disasters in recent Philippine history. It is depressing to witness, and at times it seems that the only uplifting images and affirmations to arise from such scenes, which continually accrue in our historical memory, are those of the unconquerable Filipino spirit—images of full basketball games carried on in waist-deep water and of a man joyfully tearing through a street intersection on a jet ski, and the now ubiquitous slogan “The Filipino spirit is waterproof.” These are moving, and are a testament to the fact of our geography. But, they also turn what is gross government irresponsibility into a virtue, and pointedly underscore the ways in which suffering in the Philippines falls disproportionately, if not exclusively, on the impoverished.