Weather, Whether, Whatever!

I spent the first 16 years of my life living in the southernmost tip of the Philippines. In a disaster-prone archipelago, Gensan, my hometown, seems to have had the most luck of not being in the proverbial typhoon path. I’m stating this while knocking on wood copiously, because in this era of climate change, one can never foretell how the weather will turn. In the immortal words uttered by movie star-turned-mayor-turned-governor, Vilma Santos, ‘you can never can tell’.

In the 70s and early 80s, weather patterns were more predictable. Guess that’s how it is when you have only two: dry and wet season. The wet season ran from June-September (sometimes ending as early as August), while the rest of the year was ‘dry’, with April and May being the hottest and most humid.  With Gensan being so close to the equator, cold weather was an alien concept to its residents and real only to those who lived on the ‘other side’, i.e., the mountainous northern tip of the country.

Back then, the rains were a welcome respite from the scorching heat. Seeing our school grounds littered with tiny rivulets would always give me a strange sense of serenity. Those hypnotic ripples! The rains knew when to halt and the only damage they caused was on my mother’s laundry, which she had left outside to dry. 

While being virtually typhoon-free, Gensan was not spared from the occasional earthquakes and landslides. One earthquake I would never forget was in 1976, which struck at around seven in the morning, just as I was getting ready for school. Our display cabinet that was filled with precious Noritake dinnerware had toppled over, scattering debris of precious porcelain broken into smithereens. I was only eight years old then, but I mustered enough courage to not show any grief, as I gingerly helped my parents gather the broken pieces. It must have been heart-breaking for both of them to see an entire ‘made-in-Japan’ dining set, complete with serving pieces, shatter into utter uselessness. Moral of the story? Don’t keep your nicest things for display. Use them for as long and as much as you can, because if they get damaged or lost, you can at least say you’ve used them for what they were worth. After all, they’re just stuff. Then, move on. But, I digress.

My typhoon experience started when I moved to Manila for college. Each Signal Number 3 warning would be greeted with jubilation because it meant that classes in all levels were suspended. One would think that the most sensible thing to do was to stay home to be safe and dry. Instead, we would make a beeline to the nearest mall to watch a movie and eat burgers and fries afterwards. Guess one can afford to be brazenly idiotic while still young and living away from the parents. But I do remember the post-disaster relief operations that our university would organize: soliciting and packing relief goods for distribution to areas heavily damaged by the typhoon. Our school campus was strategically located on top of a hill and from there, one could get a panoramic glimpse of the entire Marikina Valley submerged in floodwater.

Fast-forward to the new millennium when the seasons are no longer predictable, when the summer heat gets unbearably worse after each passing year, when typhoons pay visits during the holiday season. One casualty of climate change that I can audaciously claim is the annual LGBT Pride March. Previously held in the month of June to coincide with the global pride celebrations (which had its roots in the Stonewall riots in NYC in June 1969), the organizers decided to move the event to December precisely to avoid the rainy season. The other main reason was that it was closer to International Human Rights Day, which was commemorated every 10^th of December. Lo and behold, our parade also ended up getting rained on in December!

2005 LGBT Freedom March: The party tent, umbrella and raincoats say it all.

By far, the strongest typhoon I experienced in Metro Manila was Milenyo (International Code Name, Xangsane) in 2006. Thanks to the internet and local cable news TV, we were amply forewarned that landfall would be at around ten in the morning, with the eye of the storm directly hitting Metro Manila. Like clockwork, by mid-morning, the winds started howling in ghoulish proportions, the skies darkened into a somber gray and the rains began pelting down. I can confirm how destructive Milenyo was, because for the first time ever, freakish gusts of wind managed to spray water into the ceiling of the second floor bedroom of the apartment that I was living in. Outside, it looked like raging behemoths had crossed paths: tree branches were scattered all over the streets, sheets of galvanized roof were flying about and electric poles were dangerously teetering from side to side. But the typhoon left as fast as it came. Two hours later, the winds had calmed down and the sounds of the rain were reduced to a soft patter.  But oh, the destruction and the havoc that Milenyo wreaked in the metropolis. In just two hours! And don’t get me started with Ondoy, Pepeng, Sendong, Pablo and the entire alphabet-soup of tropical storms that have hit the country in the last decade.

On an annual basis, there are 19-20 typhoons that enter the so-called ‘Philippine Area of Responsibility’. Of these only a third actually hit the ground.  But, as if we’re not pummeled enough by these storms, we also have our share of volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and floods. Guess, we’re not in the Pacific Ring of Fire, for nothing.

But geography is not destiny! Yes, our country has everything to offer when it comes to disasters, just like SM Shoemart’s earworm of an advertising slogan in the 1980s, ‘We’ve got it all for you’. Yet, it does not mean that we have to resign ourselves to this unfortunate fate. We have learned to live and survive with disasters – be they ‘natural’ or human-made. When Ondoy struck in 2009, I blogged about it – extolling the Filipino spirit of resiliency, unity and cooperation in crisis situations, but at the same time, deploring the lack of disaster preparedness and management on the part of government.

As the country prepares to face the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), which just hit Central Philippines, I am reminded of this tongue-twister in my youth. This, among many others, was taught by my high school Speech teacher, who just died a couple of days ago (and this is my quirky way of thanking her).

Whether the weather be fine 
or whether the weather be not,

Whether the weather be cold 
or whether the weather be hot,

We'll weather the weather, 
whatever the weather,
 
whether we like it or not.

KALAG-KALAG and How Not To Disturb the Dead

Kalag-kalag, Bangkok-Style

‘Kalag’ is the Ilonggo word for soul and 'kalag-kalag’ is the act of remembering the souls of our dearly departed. When I was growing up, this was how my family would spend the first two days of November. It meant saying prayers and lighting candles -- one for each dead member of the family. On my mother’s side, it was her four brothers, who met tragic deaths in their youth. One had died from food poisoning, while another was hit by a falling tree, that killed him instantly. On my father’s side, I cannot remember. All I knew was that six candles had to remain lighted throughout the day. Once a candle had melted to its last bits, with the wick barely aflame, it had to be immediately replaced. This was done so as not to disturb the ‘peace of the soul’ it was burning for. For safety reasons, we had the lighted candles positioned outside the house, but near the doorway, where they could be easily seen. For best results, it was recommended to use tall bulky candles, which burned for hours and hours. Apart from the candle-burning ritual, there were intermittent trips to the cemetery, if only to assuage our dead that they were not yet forgotten.

There was nothing festive about the whole thing. In fact, if it wasn’t for the suman (glutinous rice cooked in sugar and coconut milk and peppered with latik) being prepared and served for the occasion, it seemed more like an abridged version of ‘holy week’ --  in that, it was a time for silence and contemplation. Then again, maybe it was just my parents. Not that I stayed silent and contemplative during those times – but I do remember being admonished to keep still and refrain from horsing around. 

So no, I can’t relate much to all the revelry of ‘halloween’ and what it has evolved into today. Yes, this whole costume-party frenzy and trick-or-treating are as alien as easter egg-hunting to me. While I am not vehemently against these borrowed traditions, it’s the mad consumerism of it all that I can’t stand.

After I left my hometown to study and live permanently in Manila, I reenacted the same annual kalag-kalag ritual. And, when I started working, the solemnity of the event started to dissipated. Instead, November 1 and 2 became holidays to look forward to, especially if they fell close to a weekend, because it meant longer days off work.

Throughout the years, we accumulated more dead relatives: a cousin, my grandparents, uncles and aunts. So, I would faithfully light the candles –though I eschewed the whole-day burning ritual. I mean, I had other things to do than make sure I wouldn’t burn the house down. And other than my dead relatives, I eventually also lighted candles for departed friends, especially those ravaged by cancer or AIDS. But when the number of deaths increasingly became more frequent (and unbearably so), especially before ARVs became available, the candles just weren’t enough. So I made a cosmic pact with those beloved souls that one candle could represent them all at once -- a set of friends, a number of relatives, and important colleagues. And yes, I also lighted candles for River Phoenix and Michael Jackson.