what typhoon emong destroyed in Bolinao

Because I Said So
By Boots Ma. Garcia-Sison

WHAT TYPHOON EMONG DESTROYED IN BOLINAO

I was in Bolinao, Pangasinan for a long weekend. The drive took eight hours, but it was the last hour that was the most stressful, because aside from the fact that we have been cooped up in the car for almost the whole day already, my son had been barking
“Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? ” ---- non-stop, for the last twenty minutes. At his 500th “Are we there yet, “ I came close to snapping. Till I noticed that we were driving past a not so pretty sight.

Our car passed more than a dozen houses with no rooftops. Two or three houses were still standing but bereft of walls and ceilings. Big trees have been uprooted and countless coconut trees were shorn of their branches and leaves. What happened here? was the question my husband and I dared not voice out, so as not to infect our son with our growing discomfort.

The less intrepid would have turned back, and would have charged the whole trip, especially the booking’s full payment to experience.

But intrepid is my husband’s middle name. Rolling down his window, he asked a local how far it was to our resort and I was even surprised when the man cheerfully told us, just two more kilometers. So we pushed on. In light of everything we have just seen, I wondered how the resort we were headed for could still live up to its name that literally means “the door to the sun.”

When we arrived, it was 530 pm in the afternoon. We had left the city at 930 that morning. Worse, it started to rain.

But then, the downpour lightened into a soft drizzle, and left a mist over the whole place that then slowly revealed to us its beauty.

How surprising to find a piece of Mediterranean inspired heaven at the westernmost tip of Pangasinan. A dip in the pool easily washed away the exhaustion of the road trip. The people were especially warm, and the accommodations pleasing. For the entire 3 day holiday, we were surrounded by nature. The foliage was a sea of green, the sky cerulean, the beach soft beige, and the waters, shades lighter than sapphire. Serenity lives here, I thought. But reality took a bite every time we passed a cabana that used to be the game room. To say the least, it needed a rehab, and fast. I realized that this place was not spared after all, by whatever caused the wrecked homes we saw the first day we arrived.

To their credit, not one of the service staff made us feel the effects of the disaster they just survived. They were all cheery and welcoming. In fact, talking to the resort’s people was especially easy. Given that all Filipinos after all are a most hospitable lot---we readily smile and accept friendship with no qualms or misgivings--- still, the
resort’s people had more than the usual eagerness to please and serve. They readily explained why the road we passed was littered with toppled trees and roof-less shelters.

May cyclone po na dumaan dito, the girls at the resort’s café told us. First time po nagka-cyclone dito. But now they can talk about it, even joke about the experience easily. How their own walk- in guests were stranded for two days and how the cyclone literally wiped out the nightlife in this resort town, starting with the newly constructed restaurant at their beach. And how they have to go on without electricity to this date, far longer than they expected.

I know firsthand how it is to survive a typhoon, more so a cyclone. It is a life changing experience. While it’s happening, you literally feel that you can’t do anything about it, that you’re completely in the hands of God. The cyclone that descended on this community raged on for hours. As one of the staff told us, the cyclone stopped suddenly, and for the next few moments, the people of this resort community rejoiced that the worst was over. Only they rejoiced too soon , for the winds started howling again, and continued whipping past at the speed of over 150 kph for another hour or so. The wind not only whistled, the sound was like that a plane droning on and on. I can imagine them all praying for it to stop, and hoping that what was whizzing outside their walls was not the sound of their own rooftops , walls or ceilings.

In its wake, typhoon Emong left people dead, livelihoods demolished and homes in shambles. Can you imagine how stunned these people felt in the aftermath of this devastation?

I can. It’s how I felt when my family went through the same thing. But what hit us was Milenyo, and it happened in 2006.

I still remember what time it was when the rains poured and the wind started its own eerie dirge. It was a few minutes past eleven and the sky roof over my kitchen was the first victim, flying off noisily, only God knows where. I clambered on top of the kitchen counter and tried to nail a tarapal over the opening. But the wind whipped past and along with it flew the tarapal.

The rest happened so fast. Before I knew it, one of the help was shouting---illogically I realized even then, that “Mam, mam, pumapasok na po ang dagat !!!” Dagat ? How can that be, my rational brain asked, but then I realized that at the sight of that roaring flood water, the maid must have thought that the whole of Manila Bay was now flash flooding our village.

I had to wade through flood waters to deposit my son in our neighbor’s house.
I had to do everything because my husband was out of the country. Then the lines went dead and along with it, the electricity. With my cel phone drenched, I had no way of communicating with the outside world.

By some miracle I found an extra cel fone , only to discover that it had no load whatsoever, and I had to text my friend Gina who passed me 500 pesos worth.

With that load I was able to call my sister, the police, friends of the family and everybody else I thought would be able to come and help us.

When I saw that my house was completely submerged in a foot of dark flood water, I had to fight the urge to rant and rave. This thing can’t be happening to me, in this village, right in this house that was a gift from my in-law and my husband. I had to accept the truth that for the first time in my life, our house has been flooded and our properties destroyed. Before the sight of all the photo albums and picture frames swimming around overwhelmed me , before the realization that family tapes of my son’s childhood were soaked with water and dirt, and before I started counting the time, effort and money that went into the computers destroyed and the DVD players and the TVs and the other appliances and fixtures, I had to tell myself to look past this already, to realize that all these are just stuff. What’s done can no longer be undone . I should just let go.

I have let go. I am sure now too that I had lost less , so much less than some of the people of Bolinao who suffered from that cyclone.

On the day we left, the gamehouse of the beach resort has been fully restored. A sure sign that Bolinao has started rebuilding already.

It is resoluteness that started people rebuilding and recreating a new life. This is the resoluteness of a survivor…of one who has gone to hell and back, and lived to tell the tale. This is the kind of resolve that even a typhoon cannot destroy. It’s what I had , and it’s something I have in common with Bolinao and its people.

I know what will help put Bolinao back on its feet will be the generosity of friends and family, and the kindness of strangers. That was how it was for me, and they too will have such blessings. But more than anything else, the resoluteness enables and empowers them… to fully let go…to live through the disaster, move on, and believe and trust that by God’s grace, life can be beautiful again.

BOOTS MA. GARCIA SISON IS A WIFE, MOTHER, SOCCER GROUPIE, ADVERTISING DIRECTOR & WRITER , MORE ON SOME DAYS THAN OTHERS. IT WAS HER ELEVEN YEAR OLD SON WHO THOUGHT OF HER COLUMN’S NAME. FOR COMMENTS , TEXT 09178411062.