At last, the summer heat that nearly choked many Metro Manilans as they fidgeted on soaring electric bills, has ebbed with thunderstorms and PAGASA declaring the start of the rainy season last May 29.
At last, the summer heat that nearly choked many Metro Manilans as they fidgeted on soaring electric bills, has ebbed with thunderstorms and PAGASA declaring the start of the rainy season last May 29.
Did either one make people dance in the streets? As the drizzles cooled the aluminum roofs and sprinkled the plants, it didn’t take a week though for the relief to turn into anxiety. Evening newscasts were flashing floods in the city’s major thoroughfares faster than homebound workers could arm themselves with umbrellas.
Floods. They have been the nightmares of many Filipinos every year, in both cities and hinterlands. According to PAGASA (Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration), there are 20 typhoons that enter the Philippine area of responsibility every year, with 10 hitting the island nation and 5 expected to be most destructive and powerful, occuring from June to September.
Picture supertyphoon Yolanda in the Eastern Visayas in November 2013 which killed over 6,300 people and Ondoy’s flooding of Metro Manila (rooftop-high in Marikina) in September 2009.
Bamboo Resiliency
For a people touted to have bamboo resiliency, it is a fate long embraced due to our country being archipelagic with many and vast seas and rivers that shortly overflow. And lately, as the waters rise to catastrophic levels, more of us are now rationalizing away that climate change is ravaging not only our country but planet earth beyond the control of mortals.
Yet, we mortals in this archipelago cannot be totally spared the blame. Both our government institutions and private citizens, to be fair. Beyond typhoon warnings, how far has the national government gone in buffeting the onrush of torrential rains? Has it systematized and efficiently practised disaster management methods like dredging of rivers and cleaning up of drainages, built or assigned ever-ready evacuation centers, driven citizens to adopt both preventive and reactive ways of living (environmental, responsible) to temper the devastation? And have we humans done our share, in big and small ways, to care for Nature so it won’t be provoked to destroy?
I love the rain and welcome it, being soothed by the rhythm of its cascade when I can have the luxury of cozying up with a book and lingering in bed. But it certainly bothers and stuns that there are thousands whose lives are staked or have the lesser misfortune of wading through waist-high floods to get to the refuge of home.
And also, it jars national morale that many infrastructures get decimated on the road to rising from third-world status.
Oratio Imperata and an environmental spark on my spine at daybreak, I remain hopeful.
- (Ms. Erlie Lopez is a Freelance media writer, Poet, Public Relations Consultant, Former PR agency executive, and Environment advocate.)