Pedring, Quiel and God-awful Floods
Whereas the premise of the 1995 Kevin Costner box office dud of the same title was the melting of the polar ice caps, this local waterworld came about as a result of one of the most destructive typhoons to come avisiting in living memory.
My thoughts as the initial feeds started airing the other night were that I did not seem to remember Central Luzon being so flooded since I was in high school. Memory is hazy now; but I seem to recall having come across an article in a local newspaper written back in the seventies by an American flying out of the country in a 747 who looked out the window and was extremely saddened that she could not tell where the land ended and the ocean began.
Some of the news videos are plain heartbreaking; some, on any other day, would be comical. Each and every video clip shown on TV, though, was surreal.
My heart bleeds for the poor farmer whose two children were swept away by rampaging floodwaters. Called to identify the muddied remains of a young girl found after some of the treacherous waters had receded, he could but bend over and bawl his heart out while hugging the lifeless body of his child. And his young boy still missing…
A housewife was interviewed on her way to safer ground, bringing along whatever she could. Asked where her husband was, she could only wearily tell the news reporter, “Hinahanap pa pô ang alagang itik.” How, pray tell, does one find one’s missing ducks in a neighbourhood inundated with waist-deep floodwaters?
In one community, small boats had taken the place of tricycles and kuligligs on the streets. “Walâ pong magagawâ,” one man said, “bangkâ na lang ang pwede…” There was no bitterness to his tone; only resignation. To think that such a scene is something tourists pay for to visit just south of Bangkok. In this community, there was nothing pretty about it at all. It was distressing.
Then, there were the shoreline communities that were completely wiped out by the storm surge. Two days later, people were still dunking themselves into the dark waters foraging for whatever properties they could recover; perhaps, pieces of wood with which to rebuild their houses and their lives.
“Walâ na pô kaming maiiyak” one woman said. “Nai-iyak nang lahat.” She spoke, I did not doubt, for her whole community. Indeed, you could tell the anguish from the absence of it. It was in the hollowness of the eyes – the bleeding inside; the humble acceptance of the cruel twists of fate that life is capable of dishing.
Also stark are the dilemmas facing those who try to harness nature. Dams are built to convert water into energy. Regrettably, dams burst if overburdened with water. Hence, those who manage these dams have no choice but to release the waters before the dams catastrophically collapse. And the waters that are released, as though people’s misfortunes are not enough, find their way into lowlands still currently flooded…
And another typhoon named Quiel heading fast into the same area Pedring so devastated…
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