A week before typhoon Ondoy (international name Ketsana), another typhoon - I've forgotten its name now, has already inundated our region with so much rain that I had to move my potted euphorbias from the yard into the driveway. Those which are planted on the ground, obviously cannot be moved. And a couple of them have started to show some symptoms of dying. I've already had one die on me. Donna says it was old and perhaps it's gone through its life span - which I think is baloney. Anyway, this was basically my gripe about all the rain.
And then comes Ondoy.
Saturday, Sept 26, we had an invitation to attend the blessing of an apartment building in Angeles City owned by Ayrin's brother. Ayrin is nephew Mike's wife. He's Atching Tess' son. Anyway, Ayrin told us the building is located after the bridge on Friendship Highway - this is in the vicinity of Clark. She said there will be some food served after the blessing and that we should be there by 3:30 pm. Everyone (Sister Gay, Mike's sisters Len and Berna and their daughters) was supposed to be here before three so we can all go together. And they did show up on time. The problem - it was raining so hard and there was such poor visibility (yes, that's how hard the rain was) that we thought it best to wait for it to let up. At a little past 3 I looked out the window and found our street covered with about 3-4 inches of water. Our storm drains can't take all the rainwater that was falling down. We had to send Ayrin a text message telling her we'd be a bit late because of the rain. We then finally realized this was the start of Ondoy's onslaught.
A little before four, we braved it out and headed towards Angeles via Paning's (yes, this is the place where most Capampangan balikbayan's get their watermelon seeds snacks to take back to the US), and onto Friendship Highway. I figured because of all the rain McArthur Highway's traffic will be horrendous. Big mistake. It turned out, the place was closer towards the perimeter fence rather than Friendship Highway. From Paning's, we encountered a lot of street flooding. I tried not to think about it at the time but one big rush of flash flooding and our vehicle would have been toast and we would have ended up swimming for our lives!
We arrived to a very wet and dark (there was no power) reception. There was quite a lot of food though. We basically took off after eating. On the way back, I learned my lesson, we took McArthur Highway and dropped off Donna at her school. I dropped off Len and her kids at their place in Baliti and I dropped off the rest of my passengers on the road in front of Greenfields.
And the rest is history. I'm not going to bore you with the depressing pictures of Ondoy's wrath. I'm sure most of you have seen them all by now.
Robby Tantingco of HAU's CKS, wrote a really
interesting article about the storm in the Pampanga Sun Star. Check it out
here.
Our listeners, all three of them (more I hope) had to settle with a rerun of our radio show.
Have I told you about our radio show?
Well, when Cong Paing was here last August, he was interviewed by Benny Guinto (Benny G, for short) in his radio show at a local station DWBL (Bright Light) 91.9 FM. When he told Benny G about our Capampangan advocacy and Parnasong Capampangan, Benny G asked, "Would you be interested to host one hour air time on the radio to spread your advocacy and perhaps recite Capampangan poems on the air?" They had an opening at 8-9 pm every Saturday. It costs P1,500 or roughly $35. You can imagine Cong Paing's excitement with this new development.
In short last Saturday was basically our 8th broadcast including the replay of the Saturday before during typhoon Ondoy's fury. Our new Prinsipi ning Parnaso Romy Rodriguez is the main host and Cong Naring is the co-host. I join them most of the time as part of the decor and I strum my guitar mindlessly along the way while they recite their poems. We've had a few poets visit as guests, Maritess Evangelista from Sasmuan, Esting Mallari from Macabebe, Adrian Magcalas from Mabalacat and of course when they were still here, Cong Paing and the new king himself, Ari Ning Parnaso Renato Bonus Alzadon.
Romy was absent last Saturday because he got stranded at his place in Del Carmen with Peping's (Ondoy's successor, international name Parma) floodwaters. I wasn't going to go myself but at around 6 or so Cong Naring sent me a text message saying he's already at the station so I figured I might as well go. When I arrived there about 7:30, I found him and Maritess inside the booth with Benny G. Since he was by himself, his guests and his co-host didn't show up, he had Cong Naring and Maritess as guests. He even recited a short poem off of RBA's book Casapunggul a Sampaga.
We were a bit nervous when our time came but once we started it went fairly smooth considering we didn't have our main host with us.
