To my dearest Dragon Princess,
In the eve of your fourth month outside the womb,
--Ancient and sturdy god, Habagat, is on the third day of
his yearly visit and with him came his usual entourage of thunderstorms, and
they partied hard over the skies of Luzon, blanketing the heavens with a thick
veil of dark clouds.
It’s been pouring for three days straight, 80% of the Metro
is now underwater. News came out that the floodgates of Ipo and Angat dam will
be opened less it collapse from holding too much rainfall. As the night
deepens, a fear slithers in everyone’s hearts: for sure it’s going to get worse
before it gets better.
A nervous recollection of Ondoy echoes at the back of the
collective subconscious, that terrible sneaky storm two years ago that shocked
and soaked the nation while killing and destroying many things, both named and
nameless, in its wake. But this is not a repeat of that typhoon, it’s worse by
a couple of cubic centimeters of rainfall.
Meanwhile, in the religious fanatical fence, the ignorant
conservatives blame the RH bill for ticking off God that he sent a torrential
monsoon as punishment. It’s not the despicable urban planning, nor the heaps of
uncollected trash, not even the lacking metro drainage systems that’s at fault,
rather it’s Gods wrath sent upon the Earth in the form of thunderstorm because
of a law that promotes safe sex and whatever follows after.
As the death toll rises along with the floodwaters in the
metro streets, overseas: US and Japan experience an earthquake, China is
visited by a raging typhoon, a volcano awakes after a hundred year sleep in New
Zealand, and snow suddenly falls in sweltering South Africa. While in Vietnam,
gay marriage has been approved, and perhaps some would like to think that all
these catastrophic events are again a result of God’s anger because of this
event. I disagree.
That wrathful God doesn’t exist anymore. He left a long time
ago, centuries ago. It’s only too bad he is still venerated by a handful of
ignorant folks hiding under their confused understanding of morality. Their
wrathful God got tired and left the party a couple of centuries past. He left,
but in the heavens the party continued.
In that great hall where concepts take form, the gods and
goddesses gather. In a particular corner, by a wide window without curtains,
where the air is wet, smelling like fresh dew, Habagat hopes to glimpse Amihan
before his time is up. He dearly wishes to see her if only for a moment, for a
moment’s stare is enough consummation of their forbidden love. And so he waits,
and as he waits the skies pour and grumble.
Meanwhile, on the far end of the hall, that other god Araw,
peeks from time to time at the curtain of clouds to make sure that the people
in the archipelago are not all dead or drowning. The sickly woman goddess, who
goes with so many names, tells Araw that the people will be all right; they
will get through this as they have time and time again. “It’s hard to
understand, but Habagat is necessary,” she adds.
Araw nods and sighs in a sad hum: “…for now”. The sickly
woman goddess smiles and leaves Araw to sulk in his gloom. She knows that he’ll
be in a better mood in half a year’s time.
She turns and resumes her conversation with the young God,
son of the wrathful one. They talk about him; he exclaims that he misses his
father, although he hopes that he doesn’t return at all. The old woman goddess
assures the young one that he will never come back until the end of all
concepts.
And the party continues, and it will persist since it began
eons ago when another nameless God invented time.
As the celebrations proceed, beautiful goddess Buwan is now
drunk and is holding a broken wine bottle, she is held back by the diwatas:
Magayon and Ynagigilid, she’s looking for Habagat and is rearing for a fight.
But Habagat remains sitting in his corner, in quiet waiting, keeping all to
himself his aching desire caused by his forbidden love… and so the rains fall.
Back on earth, in the Philippines, Luzon, NCR: House Speaker
Sonny Belmonte declared in the morning that his people should report to work,
he changed his mind in the afternoon because a significant part of Commonwealth
Avenue disappeared under a raging flood; that night, a sink hole appears in
EDSA, near Petron, in front of Connecticut, ripping open a couple of tires from
passing cars and causing heavy traffic; in Fairview, a mountain of trash
collapses killing some people, a woman cries when she saw her neighbor, a
friend, among the dead. There was an infant in Cainta who drowned with his
mother; they were found still together, but dead nonetheless. Your cousin in
Las Pinas waded through waist-deep floodwaters to search for food, her baby
brother Cuervo has ran out of clean water for his formula hours ago. In our
house in Brookside, your Lolo breaks sweat as he plays pingpong vigorously for
two hours straight and counting; distracted from time to time by Nacho, the
Chihuahua, who barks every time thunder booms.
Meanwhile, in the 17th floor of our condo, as the
rain reduces the view of Quezon City into a soft blur, I hold you by your
armpits and you laugh as you take your first few steps… and as you do, I laugh
with you.
