Marikina Town Under Water

Photo released by the Philippine Air Force shows aerial view of flooded areas in Marikina City in northeastern Manila, Philippines.

MARIKINA, PHILIPPINES — We have been hapless victims, caught, shocked, soaked, even muted – technically and literally helpless, and fear-stricken. It never flooded in town for a good 32 years but not one day this September 26 in the fury of a storm Ondoy/Ketsana.

It half-soaked the house and muddled everything inside it. It broke pieces of furniture, tumbled appliances, destroyed wood floors, soaked the books, destroyed important files, and few treasured possessions. But what was important was every member of the extended family was safe and this mere taxman cannot be more than thankful to God.

The ordeal and pandemonium was humbling; it made us closer to God, and has proven once more the resilience of the common man of shoe-town Marikina, and many Filipinos who have already suffered too much in life. Dad and Mom have already suffered during the Japanese-American War of World War II and why more in their near-exit years?

What manner of people are we Filipinos that deserved such a punishment from nature, and in truth from Mighty God if we consider His foreknowledge from beginning to end. The blame of course does not belong to God, nor goes to Him, but to us humans.

And so, here I am writing, even as irate as I could be to nature, and to the people who could be responsible. The death toll of 300 people in one day from a tropical depression was unacceptable.

The recently built huge SM Shopping Mall in Marikina East of the Marcos Highway that was built on the riverbed would have blocked the “water wash,” plus the ill-timed release of water from the spillways of structurally deficient dams (plural), the failures of the water pumps to function due to electricity problem, the lack of warning signals from the weatherman, and by extension the failed and openly corrupt bureaucracies.

Maybe it is the just storm with my finger pointed to the wind. Hurricane Ketsana, like Katrina came to our living room in utter disbelief. The city we learned to love with pride over the years and with the “biggest shoe in the world” – in fact the “best city” in the country – was like Rome in ruins, with the Trojan horse. The whole city was covered with brown murky water, paste-like mud, muck, garbage strewn, etc. with people on rooftops and on the flood waters while trying to hang on to dear life.

The more than 600 of graphic images over the Internet of the disaster pierced the soul. Silence and deep prayer to God was the best we could ever make to finding solace from a God who loves us and hates disaster from Day One in His good creations. It was we humans that altered the courses of nature (Global warming now), that groans also for final redemption. We should all know this as sinful people and take our share of blame.

The anxiety of calling “dead cell phones” and “landlines” of relatives and friends we have to mobilize and call for help to bring food and supplies to family members caught in the sea of floodwater was a frantic experience. Cars and vehicles were being tossed like pieces of paper going through the sewer, in unbelievable sights.

The family car caught in the garage was still sitting at the dealer’s shop with 15 vehicles ahead in the cue as I wrote this article. All semblance of the event must be removed fast and erased from memory, except for the personal trauma of crossing chest-high water to safer “ground”, i.e., on the second floor of the next house. My soul went with the ordeal, like a “Spirit” longing to be “home.”

Help we must and we did relentlessly. We thank God for surviving the ordeal. Everything is replaceable except for Dear Life but even, as this one will be given anew, in Eternity forever.

God is good all the time even in times of trouble. He never leaves us in the storm. Life goes on, and we will rebound to stay the best town. The family home is intact, at least for now. And I found something to write about, instead of bringing in tax money to the till for my clients.

Thank you to all who helped cleaned the house so Bible study could continue. God is good. It was our “corrupted lives” that brought the floods.

Do you remember who partied in New York and spent a million disproportionately? And what about who cheated in the elections, and squandered funds in foreign travels? Did we not also just torture someone making the wrongs right? And who has been killing the news people ad infinitum? Our land is truly defiled and thus perhaps the flood was what we deserved. God help us with the next one if we do not stop.

But first let me buy a boat before another deluge come again. But only those with clean hands can come to the ark. God is our refuge! Let us not forget that.

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