Quest for the True North

Ondoy

Filed under current events, opinion, personal

I was up until 4 a.m. last Saturday, studying for my Legal History and Constitutional Law classes, while the rain pounded on our glass windows. It had started raining around the time I got off work at 7 p.m, and started beating hard around midnight. It didn’t cease until I fell asleep before daybreak. It was still raining when I woke up and left for school at around 9:30 a.m., but I didn’t think much of it. If anything, I was just a bit annoyed at the rain, because I didn’t have an umbrella.

By the time I reached Katipunan extension, though, the cab had stalled. We were not moving, and I was getting late for class. I found out that another classmate was also stalled. By the time the cab got to the Ateneo area, cars bound for the north were turning back, because the flood had risen to almost knee-level. There were a couple of cars that braved the south-bound lane, but they were swimming in the water. We turned around to look for alternate routes to UP, but then I received a message from my classmate that all roads to UP had been blocked, and that classes had been suspended for the day. We couldn’t go anywhere, so she and I agreed to meet up at McDonald’s Katipunan to pass the time and wait for the rain to stop and the floods to subside.

But it never came. Good thing our laptops ran out of batteries a little after lunch hour, so we decided to brave the flood. We walked all the way to her house. At one point, the flood reached my waist and the current was so strong some girls had to meet us halfway to help us get through the current. When we got to her home, we went online right away to know what had happened to our class. We were still laughing at our wet selves when we learned through Facebook that people in other areas were climbing on their roofs and hanging on to trees for dear life. Others were stranded on the streets because the water had reached up to the chest and neck. If we had waited a little longer at McDonald’s, we would have been one of them.

I know what we experienced was very petty compared to what others went through. Many lost their families and everything they worked hard for their whole lives. I cannot imagine starting all over again. I cannot imagine being carried away to death by murky water. I cannot imagine losing family members that way. Today, four days later, families are still being rescued. Bodies are being recovered. Many are eating for the first time since Saturday. I am not sad at what had happened, I am angry!

I am mad at our lack of disaster planning and coordination. Wasn’t there a disaster plan and rescue exercise that could be instantly put to action once calamities like this happened? I am mad at how the weather station said they couldn’t predict the amount of rainfall because the equipment they needed was still to be delivered. Excuses like that sound insulting to the intelligence, especially if it results in a calamity that takes away hundreds of lives. One shouldn’t trifle with a responsibility that involves human lives.

I am mad at how private organizations and individuals work while the government is doing I don’t know what. The private sector took the brunt of the responsibility that is supposed to be the government’s. I am mad at how the social services agency is said to be stealing from the relief goods donated by private individuals. I am mad at how this presidentiable taped his name on the meals that were distributed. It’s like saying, “Look, I am feeding you. You should vote for me.” He is not getting my vote for sure.

I am mad at how the Navy has only 13 rubber boats to rescue hundreds of thousands of people stranded cold and hungry on their roofs for days now. Thirteen rubber boats! For a typhoon that affected a large portion of Luzon!

I am mad at how the government right now is pleading for aid from other countries. Is that what we are only capable of, pleading for aid? When are we ever going to be capable of planning? Of foresight? When are we going to be proactive?

The president has said in the news that we are going to be ready next time, for these next two typhoons that are coming our way later this week. Why only now, when our country has been experiencing typhoons ever since the world began?

They say we don’t have money, but how come when we are paying for the groceries and gowns and expensive dinners abroad of some of them government officials? I do not believe in excuses, but I also I do not hold out much hope that things will change for us. The best thing to do I guess is to prepare. I plan to put together an emergency kit complete with a life vest. Nothing beats preparation.