Baby steps and a supposed prelude to the end of the world

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 17^th 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.