I got what I thought was a strange txt msg from my wife last Thursday. She was telling me that a typhoon was raging out there in Manila and that they had no electricity. The house was plunged into darkness, they had no batteries for the flashlight and hardly any candles. To make matters worse, the roof of the house was almost blown away and the ceiling was spouting a mini Niagara! What was she to do, she asked.
Well, what was I to do? I found it quite funny. There I was, 5,000-plus kms. away, stuck in the oven-hot noontime Ramadan traffic along the 4th Ring Road and here was a distress message. Since the car was crawling at turtle speed, I dialed her number (I normally don’t use the phone when am on the road) and, surprisingly, got connected immediately. I said I couldn’t do anything from my end since I was stuck in the middle of the road and I even couldn’t do anything about THAT at all. No, she said, what she meant wasn’t literal but figurative in the sense that she was feeling quite miserable and a bit hopeless about their situation there. They had packed what important stuff there was in Mykes’s room – computer, TV, books, drawings, etc and moved them downstairs. I suggested they better put them into those large, black plastic trash bags so that they wouldn’t get wet. She replied that they had none of those available. But they had covered them with linen and the dining table’s tablecloth.
Why do we allow monstrosities like this in the middle of the city?
Our conversation sounded surreal, to say the least. So, I asked, what are you having for dinner? Canned tuna. Where? In the sala’s coffee table. Good thing she said, there was no floodwater out in the street. She was wondering how and where the four of them (she and Myke plus her mother and the maid) would sleep because the beds were drenched and so were the pillows and blankets after the ceiling on the second floor gave way and splashed rainwater all around. I suggested they check-in at the Hyatt or the Holiday Inn where I could earn more Priority Club Points from their stay. Verrry funny, she said sarcastically.
The typhoon packed more wind than rain and they got caught unaware of its ferocity. She brought her mobile outside the door and I could hear some buzzing and rattling sounds. It was the wind howling at 160KPH and the rattling part was probably the G.I. sheet roofing that threatened to sail away. Then the phone connection got cut. I hope it, too, wasn’t blown away by the wind.
The night before, Milenyo was on the CNN weather report but I didn’t pay much attention to it since it didn’t look like a strong typhoon. Just some minor storm passing south probably thru the Bicol region, I thought. Twelve hours later, it gained strength and punched a swathe of destruction through Metro Manila.
Later, when I got home, I saw it all on GMA 7 – roofs flying, trees uprooted, debris strewn helter-skelter and billboards toppled over like matchsticks. The other stuff is normal during strong typhoons like this - always happens. But it's the last item that bothered me. The last time I passed through EDSA, I wondered how those advertising billboards got bigger and bigger . Not only did they defile the natural landscape, I thought then, but they posed hazards as well to the public since they were located right beside busy thoroughfares. And the way they were built looked too flimsy and haphazardly done.
Didn’t the authorities realize that we are living in an earthquake zone, not to mention right smack in the middle of the typhoon belt? Whoever, I said to the wife one time when we passed by them, gave permission for such humongous monstrosities was an a**hole of the highest order. Paano na lang kung magiba yung mga yon?
Well now, the answer stared right at me from the TV screen. An accident that was waiting to happen, happened. And what do you know, everybody – from the lowest Kagawad to GMA – is huffing and puffing about regulating the building of such ugly, gigantic structures. As if they never knew from the very beginning – a bad case of see no evil. But now there is the devil to pay.
Oh well, as usual, we got officials who only know how to react once the horse has already bolted the barn.
