Home, 9:00 P.M.--I have—before I could even finish this paragraph—puffed two sticks of Winston Lights.
On a rainy Monday night when you knew that howling winds were wasting houses and trees and crops in far-away Northern Luzon; when you thought people should be warmly tucked in their beds but were not because of a recurring nightmare that Juan will worsen into yet another Ondoy; and when your lights are on while everyone else on a typhoon’s path are fumbling in the dark because their electricity had been cut off, you can’t just sleep.
I can’t sleep. Sleeping would have been an injustice, a discourtesy to your fellow human beings who have to brave a night of apprehension that nature’s wrath could suddenly turn on them and rend their lives asunder just as Ondoy did to countless thousands in 2009.
And because I am incapable of injustice, I can’t sleep the sleep of the just. I commiserate with those who are suffering from Juan’s wrath by staying awake—and thinking.
And also writing.
So, what does one write on a rainy Monday night?
Well, there is the typhoon to write about. But there’s no new thing about it except that Juan is the strongest typhoon to pay us a visit in four years.
There is also the news that the Philippine Atmospheric and Geophysical and Services Administration, or very well known as PAGASA, is more prepared today to confront Juan than in July when we, the ‘boss’ of the current administration, faced not only the wrath of Typhoon Basyang but also the anger of President Benigno S. Aquino III because of the alleged ‘incompetence’ of PAGASA’s chief, Dr. Prisco Nilo, to correctly predict Basyang’s coming.
The President’s anger led to the sacking of Dr. Nilo, but his removal didn’t deter Typhoon Juan from coming. It only made him more determined to make his presence felt. Look at the Yahoo photos of the damage Juan has wrought.
It would also be interesting to write about how early preparation could mitigate the damage of natural calamities.
In July, Basyang caused over 1,000 Filipinos to meet their Maker early. Juan, as I write this, caused only four deaths.
How sad. You see, death, by any number and whatever its causes, diminishes me.
But how also comforting.
Since Friday, government authorities were already making preparations to ensure that Juan’s visit would be ‘smooth’, I mean, cause least damage. They issued bulletins: warned people to stack on food, water, candles, and battery (in the provinces, kerosene as fuel for ‘oil’ lamps). The police, the military, and the fire department readied their emergency disaster equipment, such as rubber dinghies, axes, ropes, paddles, life jackets, emergency lights, etc. Health authorities braced their doctors, nurses, and other health workers for emergency medical situations.
And Dinky Soliman’s Department of Social Welfare and Development, or DSWD, I heard, opened its warehouses of food stuffs, ready to be distributed, in case of food shortages. This is very unlike the situation in September 2009, when donated food and other items were reported to have rotten because the DSWD locked its warehouses shut and refused to distribute these to victims of Ondoy for reasons we don’t know why.
That’s how prepared we are today for Juan’s coming.
Of course, the only thing we are not prepared for is ourselves. How we will behave in the face of a calamity is unpredictable, as we were when confronted by life-threatening situations, like when a crazed police officer took a bus full of tourists in August and the police, in response, peppered the bus with bullets to practice their shooting skills.
That was a bigger, albeit, man-made calamity, we were caught flat-footed with.
I think I have made a point.
I’ll sleep the typhoon away and hopefully, wake up to the news that Juan has left.
Goodbye Juan. Don’t come back, please.
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