WE live in the tropics.
Expect the weather to be warm and humid. Languishing in dripping, steaming and constant wetness is part of the package, especially for the people who reside in the metro.
However, there is some respite when the year ushers in the “Ber” months. The temperature normally drops. Not by much. A tad, really. But drop it does. It doesn’t dip, mind you. That’ll be exaggerating. And I don’t exaggerate. Never.
Oh, it also helps, psychologically, that the “Ber” months also usher in the Yuletide season.
People have been brainwashed to associate the end of the year with “cold” or “cool” weather growing up with songs like “White Christmas” and whatnot.
Of course, since most Cebuanos have never experienced what’s it like, they tend to romanticize the whole thing. Dashing through the snow on a one-horse open sleigh must be exciting. Well, it is. If you can find one.
You see, the sleigh is not exactly a common mode of transportation in temperate regions unless you go to a fancy ski resort or Lapland. For the rest, they get to where they’re going using an ordinary car or public transportation.
So why am I rambling about the weather all of a sudden?
Well, for one thing, it has been unreasonably hot these past several weeks, which is quite unusual really.
And since I am a plebeian, I have to admit that I’ve also been brainwashed like the rest of them. So yes, I, too, have been expecting to be laughing all the way in “cool” weather until the New Year.
The climate, though, has not been cooperative. In fact, it has been downright rude.
Our man in the weather bureau Pagasa, Al Quiblat, said Cebu and the rest of the Visayas region can expect a warmer December “because the northeast monsoon or hanging amihan will continue to dominate Luzon.”
How’s that for unfair? The north, specifically the National Capital Region, already gets the lion’s share of the national budget now it also wants to monopolize good weather?
It’s bad enough that one netizen has blamed the loss of the Miss Philippines candidate in the Miss Universe beauty pageant on the latter being a Bisaya and now this?
By the way, if you’re confused, “hanging amihan” does not refer to someone named amihan with a noose around his neck gently swaying from a tree under the vast expanse of the blue sky.
Yeah, it took a while to sink in, but boy was I relieved when I found it actually means “the cold and dry air coming from the northeast which results in moderate rainfall and cold wind” in the country.
So where was I? Oh yeah, the weather.