Storms of Our Lives

Typhoon Florita (international code name Bilis) literally caught us flatfooted. Thinking that the typhoon was not as strong as it was, my family and I didn’t stock on candles and batteries. At least we had food to eat. But for more than two days we were practically out of touch with the rest of the world because we were out of power. We had no batteries for our transistor radio and our mobile phones also ran out of batteries. In short, we were in the dark.

As in the good old days, we came to learn through our neighbors about some extent of damage that typhoon Florita wrought. It was through our neighbors that we came to learn about the landslides in Magsaysay Avenue and some fatalities in San Carlos Heights. So during those dark hours news came through word of mouth and not through the blow-by-blow news accounts on radio or television.

After a long summer, we welcomed the rainy season. For us who depend on a spring for our domestic water, the rains assure us of a steady supply of the universal solvent. Last summer, our water source was on the brink of drying up. But the heavens were so kind: the rains came at the right time when we needed them most.

And now typhoon Florita came and Baguio City was among those declared under a state of calamity. The strong typhoon came at a time when we were about to commemorate a major disaster that hit us 16 years ago – the July 16, 1990 killer quake.

But even with typhoon Florita’s excess rains and strong winds that caused landslides and floods, which snuffed out some lives and brought damage to property, we cannot curse the heavens. We have no right to. Like some challenges that we face in life, even storms and typhoons have a purpose. The sages say challenges or some storms in our lives help build and strengthen our character.

The same thing is true with disasters. The July 16, 1990 earthquake, for example, gave us much insights and lessons about how we should build and develop our city. The killer quake exposed some major engineering and planning errors in the way some hotels and other infrastructures were built.

After the killer quake, the general public sentiment was that it was high time to rethink about how we should rebuild our city. So there was this great enthusiasm about how we could re-engineer our city. There was this BLIST (Baguio, La Trinidad, Itogon, Sablan, Tuba) master plan, which European and local consultants helped design. One idea of the BLIST master plan was to decongest the city by “dispersing development.” New schools and commercial establishments, for example, should not be concentrated in the center of our downtown.

The idea was to also establish new schools and commercial centers in Baguio’s neighboring BLIST towns. But the BLIST idea up to now is only good on paper. New schools and new commercial establishments, including giant sari-sari (variety) stores called malls, are now added to our already crowded downtown.

It is not surprising then that each morning we all rush like crazy to catch a ride to town as we accompany our pre-school and grade school children to their schools. Like protons and neutrons, we all revolve around the nucleus that is Baguio’s central business and campus district.

Life could be more comfortable if people along Marcos Highway, for example, would rather send their children to some schools in Tuba town. The same could apply with people from Itogon and Sablan.

As part of BLIST, La Trinidad is already so congested and badly planned that it also needs some re-engineering. No wonder the town suffers from traffic jams and perennial floods.

It is time we learn from Marikina City. Floods used to be a perennial problem of the shoe capital. But the engineering genius of Bayani Fernando transformed the city into one of the models of urban development. With Singapore as its benchmark, Marikina City is one place where one can bike without fear of being sideswiped by running vehicles because bikers are safe and secured in their own lanes.

Walking along Marikina’s sidewalks is also like a stroll in the park after the city government legislated that sidewalks must be “returned to the people.” Marikina’s slogan is that “sidewalks are for people” so private individuals have no right appropriating portions or whole sidewalks as part of their talyer (auto repair shop), vulcanizing shop, or parking lot.

From a flood-prune town, Marikina City now aspires to become Metro Manila’s Singapore, and it is apparently moving into this direction as its leaders are matching their words with concrete actions.

But in years past, Marikina was always in the news each time a super typhoon hits Metro Manila. Choppers had to rescue people who had to climb to their rooftops as floods invaded their living rooms.

We can also learn from our brother and sister Ivatans in Batanes who learned to live with the storms and typhoons that batter them each rainy season. We are told the Ivatans’ houses are so designed in such a way that these can weather super-typhoons and storms.

As we pick up the pieces again after and learn our lessons from typhoon Florita, the typhoon reminds us that life is not 100 percent summer. Storms also come into our lives from time to time to strengthen and build our character as individuals and as a community and to add a thing or two to our individual and collective wisdom.