By Ike Suarez

The fact that I am writing this piece for Tech Times of The Manila Times is something I am very grateful for to Divine Providence. It means I am alive and did indeed escape from being drowned by the swift river currents that ran neck-deep and flooded our modest bungalow in our middle class subdivision in Cainta. The deluge came so suddenly late in the morning of September 26 that as with most of my fellow
residents in that subdivision, the only things I was able to save aside from my life were the clothes on my back. And these consisted of a pair of striped shorts and a t-shirt commemorating an Internet trade show in Manila in 1997.

But then, don’t cry for me dear readers; the truth is I won’t join you if you do so. For I am determined to rise up again and rebuild the pieces of my life bit by bit.

And now, back to the flood that struck Cainta, along with much of Metro Manila as well as other parts of Rizal and Laguna.

At about 9:30 that Saturday, I was awakened by the landline call of my sister telling me to take care, because of the non-stop rains. She was now living in Laguna where she had established an IT-enabled transcription startup.

Her call did not really worry me. Thrice in the 15 years I had lived in this subdivision, floods had struck it.
One in the late 1990s, the water level of this flood merely reached knee deep. In a worst case scenario, I believed that the flood this time would be as annoying as that last one. And so, I settled down to take my customary two cups of coffee and ponder if I had the time to go to a nearby cybercafé to check my e-mails.

The minutes passed by as I imbibed my daily input of caffeine. The pitter-patter of the rain on our rooftop continued and I hardly took notice.

Shortly after 10:00 a.m., our laundrywoman came. I asked her why she did so when she was not scheduled to do our washing. She did not reply, but told me that a few streets nearby were already beginning to flood.

I unplugged our desktop PC and put the casing of this whitebox to a higher place nearby, the side table below the ledge of a large mirror in our living room. As a precaution, I also shut down the switch in the electrical circuit breaker of our bungalow.

Since this generic system had no Internet connectivity, I decided to then start walking to the cybercafé only a few meters outside our subdivision’s southern gate. As I made my way to the subdivision’s gate, I noticed that all streets I passed now had rivulets of water running and reaching below the ankles.

Thus, I realized things might yet turn out serious and cancelled my regular trip to this cybercafé. But before returning home, I thought that buying a few biscuits and chatting with the storeowner from whom I bought them would update me on developments in our village.

Upon reaching again our home, I knew things had really began to be serious. Water levels had now reached the part of our computer table where the monitor rested. The floodwaters had now also knocked off our refrigerator and was now floating in the brown water.

I realized it was time to evacuate and urged my brother, with whom I was staying to do so also. I gave him one of my jackets—among the many I had received while attending IT vendor press briefings. I made it to the subdivision multipurpose hall; my brother was dragged by a neighbor into a two-story house where he had also sought shelter.

I shivered all night at the multipurpose center, the residents who had fled there, harped on the same thing: they had saved nothing; the high flood waters came so suddenly and without warning; nothing of this sort had ever happened before.

No organized effort had taken place to bring food. Some living in the street immediately near the multipurpose center, somehow struggled to return to their houses to retrieve some rice canned goods, bottles of mineral water and soft drinks. Some had also managed to find some candles.

Toward midnight, we tried to share a modest meal: one fourth cup rice, one half piece of sardines for each of us. And some bottles of soft drinks to slake our thirst. Our numbers at the center had dwindled, as couples with children decided to transfer to a nearby two-story house.

I had no more than four hours of fitful sleep—which I somehow managed to grab while seated on a plastic chair. I forced myself to get some nocturnal rest in spite the cold water on my feet, the mud, and the stench of muck. The last was a combination of gasoline and industrial chemicals that had found their way into the polluted Cainta river.

Making my sleep more fitful was the constant honking of the sedans, SUVs, and vans parked by subdivision residents in the village basketball court. The water almost covered the roofs of these vehicles. The noise of their horns sounded like the bleating of pigs and cattle as they were being led to slaughter.

The day after, a Sunday, it was still raining. One telco’s services could not be accessed by it cellular phone users. The other telco’s services could be accessed, but cellular phones of their users had by now become water-soaked.

Or else, their batteries had run low without possibility of recharging. Late Saturday morning, Meralco had cut off electricity in the town. On the other hand, landline telephones had been grounded by the floodwaters.

Clearly, residents in our subdivision had been marooned that Saturday and Sunday. Thus, urban legends began to circulate and most likely based on snippets of information from the few who still had access to SMS.

One such urban legend told of a child who had been carried off by the currents as her grandmother was cradling him and taking him to the multipurpose center. His body had reportedly been fished out and was now lying in the Cainta municipal hall. The currents had allegedly swept off the toddler as his grandmother was passing though the street where we lived.

Early Sunday evening, the waters subsided to waist deep level. Out of curiosity, I returned to our bungalow to find out what had happened. I could not get in. The waters had knocked down our narra sofa and blocked the entrance. But I could see the piano had fallen too. So also, the santos we had inherited from our grandfather and narra cabinet containing my late mother’s piano music books. The computer table was likewise knocked down, the LCD monitor, keyboard, and CPU floating on the water.

This was more than enough for me to force myself to return to the multipurpose center. The officers of the village association informed us who were still there, that this would be our last night there. It had to be cleaned, as they would meet on what to do the next day.

This was not a problem for me. Somehow, I again found some packaged snacks to eat for supper—which also served as breakfast, lunch and merienda. A kind soul furnished me with a blanket she had retrieved from their house, along with a dry shirt and a pair of shorts. It turned out she was an HRD officer in an e-services company in Mandaluyong City that did contracts for the customization of VOIP software.

I again found a way to change into the clothes she gave me. With these, plus the blanket, I managed to have around six-hours sleep. This, despite the stench of the muck.

That morning, the waters had receded to below the knees. I returned to our home. Our next-door neighbor treated us to lunch. It consisted of hot rice, chicken adobo and a few other dishes washed down by soft drinks.

That lunch was the first real meal I had eaten since Saturday. Our neighbor repeated the kind gesture at suppertime. He owned a computer shop in nearby Taytay and his son once worked as a call center agent.

That night, I grabbed one of the plastic chairs still around in our terrace. This was where I slept even if beside me was the sweet stench of a neighbor’s drowned dog too heavy for me to throw out.

Tuesday morning, the floodwaters had receded almost completely. Our stay-out maid reported to start helping in the cleaning. Early that afternoon, my sister came in a van accompanied by friends. They had come to give her emotional support in the wake of the possibility she would be identifying me or my brother as among the cadavers lying in the municipal hall.

My sister offered to take us out. I accepted, but my brother insisted on staying to guard our belongings from scavengers and other village intruders.

I was taken to the convento of a Catholic church in Manila. I stayed in a spare room there with a bed, blanket and pillows. It was my very first time also since the deluge to have taken a shower. This church was where my late uncle, a monsignor, began as a priest after his ordination and saying his first Mass. In due deference to the fact that he had in decades past been its assistant parish priest, I was allowed to sleep there for a while.

At the convento, I finally changed to clean and dry clothes provided by my sister’s friends. This was her form of offering relief services to persons affected by the deluge.

Near the convent were a few cybercafés. In the next few days, I surfed to find out what had happened while I and my fellow subdivision residents were marooned in our little corner of Cainta. I also managed to check my e-mail messages and the online social network I am subscribed to.

Friday, I returned to Cainta. And here I am now in one of the cybercafés in a neighborhood mall there, encoding my understandably-delayed piece. Much has still to be done to clean the muck in our house. However, some progress has been made.

I am thankful to all who expressed concern for me online and offered me help. Indeed, the fact that I can file this article is because I am wearing donated clothes.

Yes, I lost practically everything material. This includes my folio I have built over the years as a technology journalist. But I have survived. I shall rebuild.