Sunday, June 29, 2008 Estremera: In a state of d-uh? By Stella A. Estremera Spider's Web
HAVING been drenched by the downpour the week before, forced to stay longer in the office to wait for the tons of water to peter down, and landing right onto a mudpool upon disembarking from a taxi, it was a relief to spend a few days without the threat of a rainfall, and having my laundry dry as fast too.
Thus, Monday's television news on the devastation that typhoon Frank brought left me in a state that can only be best described as "d-uh?"
The images flashing on the grainy television screen was difficult to comprehend, it was surreal. For as I sweated during those two weekend-days, happy that my laundry were all dry and ready to be folded, residents of Aklan and Iloilo were wading through mud, the clothes inside their homes all muddied up, those in Zambales were once again wading in waist-high floodwater as their beaches were hammered by giant waves, and a giant ship lies bottoms up off Romblon seas.
Emotionless. Everything in a question mark. A dinner date almost forgotten until buddy Imee's text clicked, "Andito na ako sa baba."
"D-uh?" my still uncomprehending brain cells nudged at each other. "Why is Imee down there?"
That was before my brain cells gathered what little memory remained of a date set that morning.
The days that followed were just as surreal as relatives of the ship passengers were shown shouting, screaming, demanding for information, and climbing up a steel tower to get attention and that much-needed information about their missing kin.
Still, the state of incomprehension remained along with whispers of gratitude for being in Davao and getting nothing but inconvenience for what is now becoming to be the ubiquitous floodwaters of any rain that falls.
Friday afternoon was worse as a press release from an environment group demanded heads to roll for the undisclosed toxic cargo in a ship that may still be holding over 700 bodies, the kin of whom are waiting, wailing on shore -- in Manila, in Cebu, in Romblon. Having had to chew on the calamities made worse by human frailties, and stupidity, the claim that ten tons of endosulfan are somewhere in the bottom of the sea, trapped inside the cargo hold of the giant vessel that still lies bottoms up, was even more surreal than seeing houses flooded with mud while you sweat from the day's heat watching the early evening news.
It required an unbelieving surf through news sites in the Internet to convince me that the press release was not another propaganda churned out by the over-zealous. Rather, it was a fact, a cry against the stupidity that has made Frank the killer typhoon that it had become.
I'm still not over my dumb state from an even dumber State called da Pilipins.
On the way home Friday night, after staying longer than I intended to because of the early evening rain, I watched from the taxi window as vehicles waded anew in floodwaters, and simply raised my feet up when the stinky floodwaters along Quezon Boulevard poured into the dilapidated taxi that was the only one available along R. Castillo Street that night.
The driver cursed and rode on his horn, getting angrier by the minute as more floodwater seeped in and as more vehicles started to putter.
"Getting angry will not get us anywhere, manong," I told the taxi driver. "We're lucky it's just flood."
He looked at me from the rearview mirror, at first irritated, then seemingly apologetic as he saw my feet sticking out near his handbrake.
"May alon sa loob ng taxi mo," I said while whispering a prayer of thanks as the dilapidated taxi made it through the deep floodwaters of the boulevard and brought me, albeit sputtering, home.
