Mother(nature)fucking bastard named Ondoy
A year ago my parents and I were stranded along Libis after our Crosswind braved a stretch of almost-chest-level flood. This happened just seconds after a wall crumbled down around 5feet from us. The slightest wrong turn in the middle of that crawling traffic would have made us a victim of that crash. But it didn’t. And for too many reasons I just started crying while my dad revved up the engine to cross the mini-lake in the avenue. Mind you, I do not cry easily.
Looking back at Ondoy, naiiyak parin ako. Not just because of that episode wherein so many things could have gone wrong but didn’t. But because it was a tragedy that struck too close to home. It was always something that happened elsewhere – in Bicol, in Catanduanes, etc – but never really in the metro per se. (Sure, Espana but that’s a different case.) But on the other side of things, naiiyak din ako because of the inspiring events that followed the tragedy. Volunteerism, especially among the youth, reached its peak.
Classes were suspended for the succeeding week. The only day I didn’t go out into any volunteer center I spent soliciting donations from neighbors. The rest of the days, I experienced all three “stages” of the relief operations (not in this order and not in the same place) – going door-to-door to ask for donations, sorting and packing the goods, and again going door-to-door to deliver the packs. I think most volunteers just did the second, plus with friends.
I remember going to the Church of the Risen Lord in UP, without really knowing anyone there. I was alone. I didn’t go to be with friends (but that would have been nice, too) but really to be able to do something about the situation. I thought I’d be sorting and packing, but I ended up in a deployment mission. (the head of my specific mission happened to win Vice Chair of the USC the following year. Based on my experience that day I really thought she deserved to win.) In those hours, no one was a boy, a girl, a weakling, a macho man or whatever. Every single one carried the same burden. I carried on my back sacks and sacks of clothes and food while roaming the narrow eskinitas of the slums. The residents narrated while fighting the tears how the water quickly rose and destroyed their properties, how the water snatched away the things they sold in their sari-sari stores, how they didn’t know how to swim but had people to save. Not to mention the trash and crap filled creeks that crept up and attacked the innocent babies who were defenseless against the forces of nature. Saying that this broke my heart into a hundred million pieces is an understatement. Somehow it redeemed me when they’d show their gratitude when I hand them their share of the relief goods. But still, that’s all that is – relief, just something to get them by. And when the food’s been consumed they go back to the same old life, only worse. And it breaks my heart even more.
It’s funny how Ondoy has now become a verb in our vernacular. Na-Ondoy po kasi yung mga gamit namin.
By that time I was already determined to take up Public Administration for my own reasons. But it was that day that pushed me even more to the direction of pure public service.
In the same way, I hope the spirit of helping out our fellow Filipinos didn’t die out when the Ondoy hype did. Because if that’s the case, then Ondoy would really have conquered us.
Lair of the Mad Scientist 