ipersonallybelieve

The Tullahan river would be dotted with water lily patches after a period of rain. I wish these were just water lily patches. Obviously, they weren’t. And the body of water was definitely not the Tullahan River.

amphibious vehicle-not!

Last Saturday, at around 2 pm, I was feeling God-forsaken for not being able to get a ride home from school. I cursed the rain because it did not stop even as I literally commanded it to in the same way I told a presence in our faculty room to ‘shut up’ because I was getting scared. I looked for a different route towards home only to be subjected to a horrible ride which I tried to avoid experiencing an hour earlier. I took a pedicab along Dagat-dagatan Avenue hoping to reach the local mall in a few minutes and sparing myself from the murky, stinking waters of Letre. I was not lucky. The pedicab guy chose to go the long way and negotiated the side streets subjecting us to waist-deep water despite my protestations. I have always abhorred the flood waters of Malabon since I began to realize it was not the same brown waters I waded in when I was young. The waters, thanks to pollution and poor drainage systems could well be the dirtiest, stinkiest and most leptospirosis- prone water in the whole wide world. And the pedicab driver did not prepare me for it.

I got home an hour later and broke down at the door. I felt that I would die anytime soon because disease-carrying floodwaters managed to enter my body. I quickly took a warm bath because I was already feeling very, very cold. I regretted going to school that morning but was glad I was back home in the company of my family.

We spent the night huddled together listening to the news from the cell phone. Electricity was cut off late afternoon. The phone was dead and the only source of news was JAM 88.30. It was an FM station but the only one to see the urgency to cut through the usual programming and instead be the conduit for thousands of stranded people and the news that got in, mostly calls for help, revealed to us a situation never before experienced in NCR.

I spent the night commiserating quietly with the residents of Marikina and Cainta. I was worried for my friend Joahn, and tried to recall who else I knew are from the area hardest hit by the floods. The next day, I realized it was also the worst flood in the history of my birthplace, Niugan.

My brothers arrived soaking wet after wading through waters as deep as 6 feet. They reported that my Kuya’s house was submerged neck-deep wasting all the furniture they have in the ground floor. My niece’s newly-purchased ref was not spared. My sister-in-law’s van in the next house was laid to waste as well and their beautiful living room and kitchen had a taste of murky water for the first time. The same stories I heard repeatedly over radio actually happened to my own siblings. But still, they were none the worse compared to whole houses being lost in Provident Village, etc. So far, we have never experienced being on rooftops because of the flood.

It is an oft-repeated line that death is the great equalizer. Now, we know that flood waters are a great leveler as well. The rich and the poor, their mansions and shanties may both be rendered useless by the floods. Also, times have changed. Malabon residents have been used to being asked how we are when flooding occurs. Now, it seems we have been upstaged by other cities and municipalities. We do not hear our city’s name anymore in the news. It is not that we are jealous of the shift in attention. Our hearts go out to the many victims of Ondoy. Flooding in Malabon has become part of our lives. But we know that its latest victims were never prepared for it. We grieve for the losses and we pray for immediate recovery of everyone who suffered.