Post mortems

It was Monday and the  first work day after the terrible onslaught of Ondoy.   I indulged myself reading 3 different local newspapers to update me of the latest. After a very depressing week of tragedy, sleep deprivation,  and no electricity, I decided to treat myself with a Starbucks coffee and breakfast.  “I deserve it”, I mused, as I drowned myself  in the papers with a steaming cup of macchiato.

Our street after Ondoy dumped his fury.

After digesting every headline and editorial of those newspapers, I just found myself in tears. God! I really did cry!  My heart ached for my countrymen  who lost more than a refrigerator, a car, and wooden fixtures.  Many had lost irreplaceable lives of their family and loved ones.   As I skim through the photos in print, grief, tragedy, and pain are but understatements  sketched on the faces of Ondoy victims.

When I realized that tears swelled up my eyes,  I noticed that my coffee was not as comforting.  I am but one of the fortunate ones to have survived  unscathed. And there I was reading the papers, in an expensive coffee shop, as if like a mere spectator to this mega drama of Ondoy.

I think that was the most tasteless cup of coffee of my life.  My mind started to rewind to the days prior this cathartic breakfast…

After Ondoy dumped rain of gargantuan proportions in Manila, the first floor of our house in Pasig was waist-deep in flood water.  We found our refrigerator, car, and wooden fixtures floating in the mud-colored waters.  Electricity was already out.

The next morning, me and my husband decided to bring our family to Laguna – at my in-laws place.  We believe our evacuation is the safest decision for my baby of 7 months old.  My parents remained in our home in Pasig, to oversee our belongings.

Makeshift rafts made by residents of our barangay. My baby and me rode one of these life-savers when we evacuated Pasig.

Ondoy came, but the flood waters remained for around a month.  It was only a week ago that water inside our house had subsided.  The flood waters were gone in our barangay.  But some areas in Pasig, Cainta, Marikina, and Luzon still remained virtual water worlds. While my parents  are still fixing our Pasig home, my family and my baby shall be staying here in Laguna.

Many Filipinos had already expressed their postmortems of Ondoy, of  Pepeng, and Rosing, and Milenyo, and all of those natural calamities that proved nature’s fury.

I wonder if we will ever get the moral of the story.