Gading. Milenyo. Hagibis.
Being somebody who hails from the typhoon-prone municipality of Calasiao, near Dagupan, Pangasinan, I was hard-pressed not to commit those names to memory. Those were the sinister-sounding local names of tropical storms that proved to be a cut above most of the rest of the typhoons that visited the country, at least for me, my family, and my old neighbors. These notorious weather disturbances flooded the streets of the rural town’s low-lying barangays, including our village; uprooted the mango and acacia trees in public schools, including the ancient trees in my old elementary school; ripped the roofs off houses, including the one my parents and I used to call home; and claimed the lives of many people, including the grandmother of a childhood friend.
A few years later, just within the last 48 hours or so, 105 miles from where I once was, I was to add another name to that short yet traumatic list of super-typhoons. I couldn’t agree more with Jansen when he wrote, “This weekend was hell in the form of water,” because hell is precisely what Ondoy caused to many Filipinos in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces. Although I was fortunate not to experience the wrath of Ondoy firsthand, I was still greatly saddened by what the people in the news on TV and in the images on the Internet had to come up against. Who in their right mind wouldn’t be? It was plain to see that these poor people had it much worse than me, my family and most of my old neighbors. Stranded and wet. Hungry and cold. Missing and dead.
While waiting for a pedicab to take me home after eating lunch at a nearby Chowking branch yesterday, I overheard then eavesdropped on a woman talking to somebody, probably a relative, on her cellphone. Her voice was trembling as she told the person on the other end that she’s okay. Then, she broke into tears as she spoke the words she wished she didn’t have to say and weren’t true: Her family was helpless on the roof of their apartment building. I listened to her cry as she said that perhaps she should just buy a lifeboat for her family because apparently the rescue team was taking forever to arrive. I felt lucky to be safe at home several minutes later, but sad at the same time for the wretched woman I left at the entrance of a fast food restaurant, whose family was without food, without water, and with no way out.
Gading. Milenyo. Hagibis. And now, Ondoy.
I would be hard-pressed not to remember those names for as long as I live. Especially the last one.
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