My Ondoy story is not that of being a victim nor being a hero. It is simply about being me, with writing as my outlet for things.
It was August 1991. My parents have been married for a year at that time, and they were expecting their first born on the following month. August 21, 1991, Typhoon Gladys hit the Philippines and caused a lot of casualties, including severe flooding in Metro Manila and nearby provinces. The following day, my mom made her way home from the office. There was no means of transportation available. Pregnant as she was, she had no choice but to brave the floods from Binondo to her home at Jose Abad Santos Avenue. As she reached the driveway of her house, blood started to drip down her legs. Luckily, her mother was there waiting for her. They went immediately to the hospital. Thankfully, her child was delivered alive, though premature, through a Cesarean section. The child’s life fully depended on the incubator.
Eighteen years have passed, and my mom still could not forget the horror of almost losing me. Yes, I was that child who got out prematurely because of a storm. My mom always tells us that story whenever it would rain cats and dogs. She said that the water was waist high back then.
But then if she thought that nothing could top that kind of flooding, well it just happened. September 26, 2009, Saturday, Typhoon Ondoy hit Manila and its nearby provinces. My family started the day like any other Saturday. My dad got up early for his job, my mom got up early to prepare breakfast, while my siblings and I preferred to sleep in on a gloomy and chilly Saturday morning. I groaned because I had a plan to attend a talk at DLSU on that day – of course later on I found out that it was canceled. The rain was continuous. Our street, Yakal street, has always been prone to flooding, even in small amounts of rain, so I was not shocked to see flood rising quickly. By noon, my dad called because apparently, they were being dismissed early due to severe flooding. I sat near the balcony of our second floor to check on the flood. It looked normal to me. By 5 p.m., I was getting worried because my dad was supposed to be at home hours ago. He got home at around 6 p.m. It took him nearly seven hours to get from Sta. Mesa to our home. He paid P50 for a pedicab ride from Bambang LRT station to the front of our house, which is not even two blocks away. He said that the trains were jam-packed with passengers. Still, as soon as he got home, all my worries went away. I got on my laptop to do some school work, but as I checked my Facebook, I was so shocked to see pictures of DLSU flooded on the inside. I did the right thing by skipping the talk. I also saw the video that was shot near UERM. I had no idea that the flood was that high and destructive. Later on that evening, my cousin, who was home alone because her dad was in the hospital and her mom was with him, called to tell me her “amazing adventure” that got her swimming with rats. She was at her school when the flood started to rush. I don’t know what she was thinking when she told herself she had to get home to change because she had her period. She could have fallen into a manhole for all I know! Thankfully, she got home safe. She also told me that we would visit her dad at the hospital on the following day.
The next day, flood has not yet subsided in our area, so I called my cousin to tell her I could not make it; neither could she. With no cable and no Internet, the radio was our only source of outside news. As I hear reporters talking about three-storey houses completely underwater, I was thinking here we go again with our overreacting media. It was only later on that day when we received a text message from my mom’s friend living at Cainta, Rizal that said he was stranded at the roof of his two-storey house, and that could be it for him, that I believed what the reporters were saying. I was really worried then. People – children – could be dying out there.
Monday, September 28, I received a news that classes would be suspended but then relief operations would be held at the campus. It remained flooded in our street until Wednesday, September 30, so I was confined in the four corners of my room. Thursday, October 1, I got a message from my high school asking if I want to volunteer in repacking the goods. Since the weather was fine for the past two days and I deeply missed my former classmates, I said yes. Friday, October 2, the sky looked like it was about to explode as I was all dressed up and ready to go. A few minutes before noon, it started to rain, so my mom stopped me from going out. Self prophecy, I guess. She had me in the middle of a life-threatening storm, she thinks she would lose me that way too, so I was stuck at the house again. I finished the heavy school homework by that time, so I was stuck with nothing but my laptop. I feel so bad knowing that people needed me out there while I was sitting here using Twitter all day. Most of my posts in Twitter on that day were reposts from PAG-ASA for weather updates and GMA, ABS-CBN and other organizations for emergency hotlines. I know that was kind of stupid because who could a drowning man access Twitter? So then I stopped posting and started off blogging. At first, my blog was supposed to be about my boring week, but then it turned out to be something which I think is awesome. Here it goes:
An Ode to the Filipinos
