Rainy Season: How Is The Philippines So Far?

Hey it's the rainy season!  The season when a lot of people start sweating bullets despite the cold weather.  I don't mean to sound like it's no big deal, because it is.  A lot of Filipinos die when the storms come around, and millions, if not billions, of pesos go down the drain, literally.  I won't claim to know a lot of things where flooding is concerned, as well as storms, but to a certain extent, I know what I'd like to blame: People. 

People throwing things indiscriminately, clogging drains, pipes and sewers.  Add to that the country's antiquated sewerage design, and the sinking land masses and you have a sure recipe for disaster every time we have prolonged rains.  Heck, even some people in my home can't keep up the discipline necessary to keep the house free from garbage, and I'm talking about educated people here, what more those "underprivileged, uneducated" people living under the bridge and in squatter areas?  Well, with large areas of land being transformed into dumpsters, you'd hope that our government would learn to dispose of garbage better, but alas, that's not to be.  Not when ordinary Juans can't summon the wherewithal to find a garbage can to throw their garbage in.  It seems that the country's becoming one giant garbage bin, and it's not going to get better unless everybody starts pitching in and carrying their own weight.  Until then, our floods are going to get worse.  Our people are going to keep drowning.  Our country's going to sink deeper into 3rd world status.  Enough of my rants, here are some stories around the country about the floods:

• Firefighters to declog drainage in Metro - Yeah, now firemen have to do work that's not theirs, just because of people indiscriminately throwing garbage.  Go figure.
• Falcon victims reach 1M - And the toll will just keep on rising...
• Bulacan clears roads after Falcon - Kudos to the governor, but it's sad that we're always just reacting.
• Falcon losses up to P54M - People's resiliency is amazing.  What's more amazing is that they don't learn the lessons that would have prevented the problem in the first place.
• Pampanga in state of calamity as well as Still no classes in Pangasinan
• Falcon leaves but more to come - Maybe we should build arks?

In a bit of good news though, for a change:

• Praise for the country's weather forecasters - It's toward the end of the article, just keep reading ^_^
• Tax breaks for calamity victims - It's like a dark comedy; a tongue-in-cheek joke... But you take the good with the bad, and I guess this isn't as bad as it is good.
• Marikina is prepared - That's excellent news, isn't it?  It is ^_^. 

All this grief from a typhoon that's rated at a fourth of Ondoy (International name: Ketsana)?  I shudder to think what's in store for us in the coming days or weeks of the rainy season!

Let's start now!  Segregate our trash, clean up our sewers and rivers, upgrade our drainage systems!  Let's not wait for something like Ondoy to happen again before we finally do what needs to be done.

Invest in floaters,

Jon
PRC License No. 0004326