Greatest Flood in the Metropolis

We can say that we Filipinos are used to or even immune to disasters, floods, volcanic eruptions, series of typhoon and any other natural disasters. But we never anticipated what had happened last weekend. The rain that caused the flooding destroyed everything our fellow Filipinos have worked for. That includes the destruction of their livelihood, houses and life’s worth.

Looking at the pictures of the flood is a humbling experience for me. The flooding only shows that people, regardless of their status in life are equal in the times of crisis. We human beings are vulnerable to the wrath of nature. The flood not only affected the poor and the lowly but the rich who lives in exclusive subdivisions as well. It also killed and displaced people in a massive scale.

Now that water has receded, the blame game starts to roll. So called so-so scientists blamed the flood on global warming. Opportunistic oppositionist politicians and irresponsible people in the media blamed it on Gloria. I say we have nobody to blame but ourselves that the flooding happened. It’s about time that we Filipinos should own up and take responsibility for our actions. It’s not bad to admit mistake because it’s the only way that we will reform and clean up our acts. We should not wait for a calamity as big as this to happen before we realize that the things we did in the past had brought this to us.

Below are the errors that people made that triggered the massive flood.

- The destruction of the trees and the absence of trees in the metropolis.
-Allowing buildings to rise and subdivisions to be made on areas that are prone to floods.
- Shanty houses of the squatters on the riverbeds that causes the rivers to overflow.
-The habit of throwing everything everywhere. That helps clog our rivers, drainages and sewers.

The list could go on and on but the reality is that, it wouldn’t have happened if we were kind to Mother Nature. Nature has no choice but to be cruel in order to be kind. We are experiencing this kind of stuff so that we could learn from it and change.