Rainy days before SONA

It's raining cats and dogs in Quezon city. Sometimes, this makes me very afraid because the floods might enter the house again. Before, it used to take 4 to 5 days of continuous rains for our house to get flooded. Now it sometimes takes only a few hours. Ever since the huge four-story SM Centerpoint mall was constructed along Aurora Boulevard, the waters have had a hard time receding from the roads. They accumulate and then keep our place inaccessible for hours and hours. Poor families scamper to the Betty Go Belmonte Elementary public school or go atop the rooftops of their shanties for safety.

I have experienced being cooped up on the second floor of our small house at the back of the compound of my mother's residence. Luckily, I was able to buy food and so did not have to worry where to eat. But what was difficult was relieving myself. Talk about economic development and GDPs.

It is already 2007 and the environmental problems have worsened. I have been hoping that MetroManila would have cured itself of them but unfortunately, the situation is getting graver. I wonder why pumping stations are not set up at strategic points of the metropolis so that when the rains come, they get activated and help the people deal with the rains more conveniently.

But you know, these floods have a certain use. I notice that they come during those times when there are grave political events happening in the country. Like today is three days before the State-of-the-Nation address will be delivered by gma at the Batasang Pambansa. The military and the police are on red alert already. I noticed this morning that the tricycles kep moving about in front of our house every five minutes or so and they go vroom vrooming when near our place, sounding as if the noise was meant for us to hear clearly or get irritated badly.

Sometimes no amount of scientific analysis suffices to explain phenomena in our land. Maybe in some near future, we would finally be able to get officials whose mission in life is really to serve the people and not their pockets.