Hope on four legs

Volunteer K-9 teams show how training, trust and community action can strengthen disaster resilience.

- By LEN AMADORA

METRO MANILA DOG ASSOCIATION K9, Ghost, with handler Sheryl Impacis on site during the relief operations in Bogo City.

When it comes to disasters, preparedness is often taken for granted—until a calamity strikes.

If there is one lesson that floods, landslides and earthquakes continue to teach, it is that resilience is not built overnight. Being prepared means anticipating what may come; being resilient, however, is measured by how well communities recover after a disaster.

When disaster strikes, resilience often emerges in unexpected forms. For the Metro Manila Dogs Association K-9 Corps (MMDA K-9 Corps), a reliable lifeline can be found closer to home—in household pets.

The MMDA K-9 Corps was previously featured in a Manila Bulletin article, “Resilience lives in every act of kindness,” which highlighted the deployment of Ghost, a wide-eyed German Shepherd, and the Corps during rescue operations following a magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Cebu Province. The story underscored how resilience is embedded not only in the systems we build, but also in the compassion we show, and the heroes we sometimes overlook.