AN APOCALYPTIC photo of Manila’s skyline, covered by eerie dark clouds, would make you think this God-forsaken country is about to be erased from the face of the Earth. Half of the capital city is submerged.

The Southwest Monsoon that has brought unabated rains has ravaged 128 municipalities and 30 cities in 16 provinces throughout the Philippines.  The death toll rose to nine. Reports said more than 454,000 families have been displaced.

It’s been almost two weeks since the Philippines last saw the sun. But the tragedy is no match for the Filipino people’s contagiously sunny disposition. A tweet from the Ayala Museum that says “The Filipino spirit is waterproof” has inspired the production of a bunch of Internet memes.

Circulating on Facebook are Instagram collages of flood photos, showing the Filipino version of stoicism. A smiling man poses inside his house, where appliances float in a chest-deep flood. A man sleeps peacefully on a floating mattress. A man frolics in the flood like a stilt-walking clown, with foot stools attached to his feet just for fun. A transvestite in an elaborate home-made mermaid costume – complete with tiara and garish jewelry – sits on a rock for a staged photo-shoot. Men sit on an inflated boat, smiling and flashing V-signs like tourists vacationing in Venice. The clever ones would use these photos to accompany the Philippine Department of Tourism’s “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” slogan.

Don’t feel guilty if you feel like laughing. We want you to laugh with us. Seeing humor in tragedy is what Filipinos are good at.

My beloved country is a piece of surreal art, like a magical realism novel that comes to life.

Natural calamities – typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions – visit the Philippines regularly. One would think the gods conspire to create these natural disasters every single year to trigger population attrition and annihilate this race.

And then there are manmade disasters – coup d'états, corrupt government, revolutions, impeachment trials, the Church, Imelda Marcos and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

The Filipinos are indeed veterans of calamities. This is how these people have developed a remarkable resilience and immunity to pain and mental depression.

They have forgiven God. And such an act of forgiving brings out the best in everyone. Selfishness is replaced with altruism. Neighbors risk their own safety to carry a laboring pregnant woman to the hospital. Flood victims rescue their own rescuers who fell in danger. Prison inmates and jail guards have skipped breakfast for two days to donate their food ration to the flood victims.

Filipinos say “Bahala na si Batman” (Let Batman take charge) when confronted by a despondent situation, in which nothing can be done but leave things to fate. Such a happy-go-lucky attitude can slip into a weakness of character, but at the same time, it equips people with strength that enables them to battle any monster that comes their way. The Filipinos may not have super powers, but they have a strong human spirit to survive.