Floods, budget insertions, more taxes

It just keeps getting worse every monsoon season — Metro Manila's roads, alleys and even major thoroughfares are left submerged in floodwaters.

- IRIS GONZALES

Taxpayers' money is washed away with the tide and the heaps of garbage that clog our cities' nooks and crannies.

Tuesday noon in rainy Manila, after traveling for an hour from Quezon City, I found myself stuck just right before a flooded intersection, some 50 meters away from my office in Parañaque. The roads were not passable. I was so near, yet so stuck. I had to park in a nearby restaurant to wait for the waters to subside, but the heavy rains just wouldn't stop. The water levels just kept rising. After waiting for half an hour or so, I had no choice but to turn back.

But who am I to complain? From the relative safety of my car, I could see men, women and children wading through knee-high waters just to make it to where they were heading. Some had nothing to protect them from the torrential downpour; others managed to get some cover with their umbrellas. Motorcycle and tricycle drivers were all drenched but continued to their destinations, perhaps to earn a living despite nature's wrath.

In the Barasoain Church in Malolos, Bulacan, the Associated Press captured a couple exchanging vows in the flooded church. The beautiful bride, in her white wedding dress, walked down the aisle, which was flooded with waters nearly knee-deep.

On Tuesday night, a colleague left the office around 6 p.m. only to get stuck in a flooded portion of NLEX. He reached his home around 3 a.m. Another colleague, who took the LRT, left around 6:30 p.m. and made it to her home in Quezon City around 11 p.m.