AFTER Typhoon Ondoy, I got several appeals for help through the e-mail. One of the requests had a link to a YouTube video showing the floods in Pasig. In the video clip, and in several of the photographs that eventually appeared in the papers, were the victims, some perched on rooftops, others on makeshift rafts and still others wading waist-deep in the water. But I wasn?t sure the video was going to be that effective in raising funds: the victims were waving, smiling, flashing an L-sign on their chin (a favored pose among picture-conscious Pinoys).

Such photographs always elicit remarks: ?The Filipino is really resilient,? ?Filipinos are such a happy lot? and ?The Filipino is a survivor.?

I agree with all these statements, but want to be a bit more introspective and analytical. I will say outright that the smiling faces often mask deep suffering, grief, and even simmering anger. In fact, the laughter is there almost because culture requires it, and in the long term this can be harmful because of all the suppressed emotions.

Why then do we flash those smiles? I suggest that the cheerfulness in times of disaster is actually a form of cultural adaptation, evolved through decades of living dangerously.

There are clues to this cultural adaptation in our behavior at wakes. A foreigner attending one of our burol would probably think we?re bipolar. At one moment we?d have hysterical grief, with relatives crying and screaming as if hoping to rouse the dead. A few minutes after, the same grieving kin might be drinking, gambling, grabbing the karaoke microphone, or letting loose a stream of endless jokes about the deceased, again almost as if to get the dearly departed to rise and join them.

I explain to foreign friends that both the crying and the laughing are ritualized, becoming part of a communal attempt to keep people sane. We are all too aware of what sadness and grief can do to a person, and therefore allow, sometimes even push, people to let it all out with a crying jag, sometimes even joining in the crying itself. Then we team up to find ways to cheer up the bereaved.

There?s pop psychology at work here, and I know professional psychologists and psychiatrists sometimes worry about how this is done because it often includes a telling and retelling of the experiences around the misfortune or disaster. I see it though as collective psychotherapy, and our professionals might want to find ways to tap this cultural resource to help others.

Undoubtedly, faith and religiosity play a role too. Over the centuries, we?ve developed a culture that gives religious significance to suffering, and I attribute this to the Spanish colonial period with its strong religious themes of suffering-as-redemption, with Christ as the ultimate example. This is accompanied by a prescription to accept, even to resign ourselves, to that suffering.

I worry at times about the passivity that comes with that suffering and wonder if we should not at times look further back in our history to the pre-colonial period when suffering came with notions of pagsubok or trials. It could have been the warriors being tested for their strength. It could also go back to the idea of the ?wounded healer?: someone becomes seriously ill and has visions and apparitions, practically ordering the sick person to become a healer. Here, the trials are seen as challenges, not as something for passive acceptance.

I would be careful too and advise against overdoing this cheering up routine. I?ve seen how people can become weary, even offended, by the endless banter and joking in the aftermath of a death or of disaster.

We need to be sensitive as well to the less visible, but equally important, quiet moments that Filipinos seek in times of disaster, retreating to be able to take stock of what?s happened and what lies ahead. This is the difficult part, trying to balance a respect for the need of people to be alone, and yet letting the person know you?re available when needed, minus the jokes.

Again, I go back to the point about culture. We?ve learned to deal with many kinds of disasters, but Ondoy was particularly challenging because the flash floods came and went so quickly, cutting people off from the routines and networks that could have provided strength and support.

Typically, people compared the experience to having lost property to a fire, and then would add, ?But it?s worse now.? Fires consume everything, leaving mostly ashes. The floods left too many memories still swirling in the flood waters: photographs, diplomas, letters. It was heart-breaking to watch people trying to reconstruct those memories: using a hair-dryer on the photographs, for example.

In the trying times right after Ondoy, Filipinos smiled for the cameras and the world, well aware that we would come out on television and on YouTube. We performed because we wanted, almost desperately, to console each other. In the months ahead, I would like to see more work done to bring out the quiet times we had for ourselves and for each other, trying to turn the typhoon?s debris into badges of courage. Sure, show those photographs, but let?s also remember the stories of quiet time, of quiet consolation, so we can add on the lessons to the cultural survival kit for future generations.