Inundated

The city has rejoined the sea. And the storm season has just started. A train of potential storms are lining up in the Pacific Ocean.

- ALEX MAGNO

One shudders at the thought things could even get worse than this.

By one account, about 5,000 streets in Metro Manila and adjacent cities are suffering flooding problems. This is simply a tedious way of saying the entire metropolis is submerged.

On account of flooding, work is interrupted and classes suspended. When we decided to pile up our holidays, no one thought of the number of days we usually lose to natural calamities. Our productivity suffers. The yawning learning gap that dooms the next generation of Filipinos just grew wider.

The toll will continue to mount. Food price spikes will be conveniently attributed to crops lost to flooding. Delays in every aspect of our economy—infrastructure projects included—will be blamed on the same.

Shortly, we will be given some numerical estimate of the destruction caused by rain. It will always be an understatement. It cannot possibly quantify all the horrors, the discomfort, the dislocation, the loss of productive time and the great heroism put in by our small army of rescuers—all these escape national accounting.

We are wrapped in an overpowering sense of helplessness inflicted on our people by incessant calamity. My phone is full of calls for prayer from those completely daunted by the warning that rains will continue pouring the coming days. Having given up on government, our people are pleading for divine intervention.