The Inevitable
One of the things that Sam brought home recently is a copy of a slideshow presentation created in the year 2002. Made by the Philippine Center for Photojournalism under the direction of Alex Baluyut and titled “Tan-aw Mindanaw: Journey Across Time”, it contains photographs from as far back as pre-war days, and features commentary by Carolyn Arguillas.
One of the most noticeable points in the photographs is the over-abundance of trees in Mindanao in the olden days. Of course now those trees are gone, the way huge old trees fell by the sawmills that fed the paper mills.
And now that the trees are gone, the land is also being taken away—literally taken away—at an alarming speed by the various mines that have popped up like mushrooms in the provinces of Mindanao as well as other parts of the Philippines.
In a matter of years, our mountains will have become holes left behind by those who have hauled away all the gold and metals and minerals. These treasures, unlike trees, cannot be replaced, and do not regenerate after they have been dug up and taken away.
The mining companies say they provide jobs and foster commerce. And they do, for the time that they are operating. When they go away, as most people who have taken what they need and have no further use for the remains, what they leave behind will become a ghost town.
Maia can’t come out to play today
It happens at least once a year, this flood. It happens when the rains come in the middle of the year and the creek that borders our subdivision floods, and if the tide is high the water from Manila Bay comes in and meets the flood, the water rises in a matter of minutes and comes in from the street, into the house like an unwanted visitor.
Cleaning it up takes a lot longer than that of course.
Why I couldn’t go to work today
By the time I had informed the office that I wasn’t going to show up, the water level had risen to around six inches inside the house. Barely 10 minutes before this photo was taken I was still outside taking a video of the water rushing past the gates out on the street, and of our concrete garden sinking into the muddy waters. Good thing we had enough time to bring all electrical equipment onto dry table tops.
When Maia first saw the flood inside the house she exclaimed as clear as day “What’d you do?!” as if it were the entire household’s fault that her living room was under water. A few minutes later she stood on the stairs and kept calling out “Help! Help!” as her cartoon friends would when they were in trouble.
In the meantime, Kuya Maui had to find alternative means to amuse himself while he was unable to sit in front of the computer … and in retro fashion dug out his box of Lego blocks, which he hadn’t touched for more than a year.
The rain must have started in the wee hours of the morning. When I woke at a quarter to six it was the steady downpour that we feared. Steady downpours are dangerous in our area. Sudden squalls do not bring floods. It’s the slow and steady rain that doesn’t stop that eventually becomes the river outside the gate, and the tide that rushes into the house, leaving us with no alternative but to wait until it does stop.
We were still fortunate, of course, as we only had to wade in six inches of murky water. The area near the creek, just a turn from the nearest corner must have been waist deep. And to think the barangay had dug up our sidewalks just last June to put in their flood-control culverts under ground.
Barangay Vitalez, as you may well know by now, it didn’t work.
A list of things I lost
over the past three weeks:
1. a lot of time meant for blogging
2. a few inhibitions
3. a lot of time meant for personal endeavors (namely blogging)
4. my temper
5. all the photos on my blog
6. some of the photos on Sam’s blog
7. the AquaBlog
8. Maia’s new photo blog
9. a couple of test sites I put up on kusangpalo.com
10. a precious few readers who have given up hope on whether I was going to blog again.
There could be more, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment.
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