advice from an experienced flood victim

from an experienced flood victim
By Gwendolyn So

Unbeknownst to many, my family and I are experts when it comes to flooding. By this I mean that for almost 10 years when we lived in a low part of Sto. Domingo Street in Quezon City , we experienced flooding INSIDE the house at least once a year and if I remember correctly, sometimes it was twice or even thrice a year.

The first time it happened we were in shock, but as it happened more and more it became routine. Here are some nuggets of wisdom that may help:

1. I learned that once the water reaches knee level, the gates can’t be opened anymore because of the water pressure. We thought we still had time to take the cars out but realized we were trapped. That time our cars submerged. Make sure you know which area near your residence is considered higher ground and take your cars there EARLY.

2. Do not despair so much if your cars submerge. They can be fixed. It’s expensive and takes a long time for the smell to go away, but it’s not the end of the world. After the flood, just let the car dry. We were still able to use our Hi-Ace and Mitsubishi Lancer despite their having been half submerged in floodwaters.

3. I learned that heavy stuff, like the ref and shelves, FLOAT. So every year from then on, we would TIE DOWN heavy appliances like the ref (too heavy to carry upstairs but in latter years we did lug it all the way up to the 2nd floor), the big shelves with wedding souvenirs and knick knacks and my dad’s collection of wine. How did we do that? Tie them to the windows.

4. Adrenalin will give you superpowers once you decide you’re not afraid of a little water and start saving what you can. In my case, it was my collection of books. They’re not rare first editions but regular books. However, I love my books and I’m not letting them drown! I was able to move and carry our heavy sofa powered by my body’s own adrenalin hormone.

5. You can have fun in the midst of disaster so I took out our cameras and starting taking pictures. It was to make everyone have a good laugh as we surveyed the chaos around us, the cockroaches and rats swimming by, the black inky spots of oily stuff occasionally floating around.

6. Apparently, no matter how much you’re enjoying yourself frolicking in the water and saving what you can, once the cold water reaches your chest (especially your nipples), you start to shiver and it gets hard to breathe. This is the time to give up and go upstairs.

7. If your electricity stays on, go to the switch box and turn off all the electric outlets downstairs but not upstairs.

8. Cleaning after the flood is a pain. Once the waters recede, you are left with mud everywhere. They stick so you have to get the hose and start using the walis tingting (how do you say this in English? It’s a broom made of just think twigs/sticks tied together in a thick bundle). You just keep the water running and sweep, sweep, sweep like there’s no tomorrow.

9. You must scrub the walls with disinfectant. If you only rinse with water, it will still smell. We used Lysol. Scrub, scrub, scrub like there’s no tomorrow.

10. First time water got inside our house, we didn’t know we had to use Lysol and that the drying process is super vital. So, after a few days, there was this nauseating smell and later we found molds growing everywhere! We had returned the furniture and appliances to their normal places and the walls behind grew molds. Yuck!!!

11. We were still able to use our ref that floated in flood waters. Just clean and clean and dry and dry.

12. Once electricity is available, get out all your fans and dry everything thoroughly.

13. Yes, paint will peel off and wooden drawers and shelves deform. Salvage what can be used. Once they dry, it’s still ok but sometimes the drawers get stuck because the wood expanded so you have no choice but to destroy it because icky water is still trapped inside.

14. Wait at least 2 to 3 days to dry everything. Use fans and hairdryers. Do not, I repeat, do not be in a hurry to return stuff you saved to their original places.

15. Have this mindset: Ah, it’s good Im now forced to do a general cleaning of my house. Now I have no choice but to do it.

It is easy to go insane after this kind of calamity, to despair of the material things we lost (especially the cars), but please be thankful you got away with your life and that of your family and loved ones

your comments and reactions to government and private efforts in reaction to the Ondoy disaster

let us herar your views on this matter.

TOP TEN REASONS WHY ELECTRIC CONSUMERS IN MINDANAO WILL OPPOSE THE SALE OF PULANGI & AGUS COMPLEXES

HINDI DAPAT MAGING PAMBAYAD UTANG NG NAPOCOR ANG PAGBENTA SA AGUS AT PULANGI COMPLEXES.

This week, I was one of those seated at the conference room of City Council of Iligan.

I was listening to officials of Lanao Power Consumers Federation (Lapocof) express  their vehement opposition to the present administration’s plan to sell Agus and Pulangi complexes in 2011.

Whether income that would be derived from this planned sale will be used to pay for the soaring debt of Napocor, is something that I still need to know.

You may ask me what is the relation of this Agus and Pulangi Complexes  to our lives? My answer is “look at your ceiling and stare your lights.. be it bulb, fluorescent or chandelier… stare at your electric fans, TVs, air conditioners and your electric socket.”

These complexes are the sources of electricity generated by our hydro power plants. And yes, the government is selling these by 2011. So I am inviting you to read the reasons why electric consumers, local officials and NPC officials are opposing this sale.

———

August 28, 2009

This is with regards to a crucial provision of RA 9136 of 2001, the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) which is vital to the development, welfare and future of the whole Mindanao. This is the sale of the Agus/Pulangi Hydro Complexes by 2011.

Chapter V of the EPIRA, Sec 47 (f) “The Agus and the Pulangi complexes in Mindanao shall be excluded from among the generation companies that will be initially privatized… Said complexes may be privatized not earlier than ten (10) years from the effectivity of this Act. The privatization of Agus and Pulangui Complexes shall be left to the discretion of PSALM Corp., in consultation with Congress. READ FULL TEXT & RELATED STORY….

Demokrasya

Demokrasya
Prof. Dan Rivero

Ang bayang naging tulog, bibig naging kimi;
Ay namula’t, nagising at nagsalitang muli;
Sa paglisan ng isang taong minsa’y tumindig;
Laban sa rehimeng sa baya’y nagpatahimik;
Mga karapatang sagrado matagal na siniil.

Kanyang asawa pinatay na walang laban;
Bitbit lamang ang hangad para sa kalayaan;
Para sa sambayanang uhaw sa kapayapaan;
Tungo sa tunay na kaunlaran nitong ating bayan;
Sa ilalim ng katotohanan, pag-ibig at katarungan.

Subali’t hindi naduwag itong abang biyuda;
Sa halip ay tumayo at humarap sa masa;
Baya’y nagkaisa’t tumalima sa panawagan nya
Na labanan ang pagkamakasarili at pagpapasasa;
Ng isang diktador, pamilya nya’t oligarkiya.

Kalayaa’y natamo dalawang dekada ng lumipas;
Nang ang diktador at alipores niya’y umalpas;
Taumbaya’y nagsimula sa isang panibagong bukas
Sa gabay ng lider na namuno sa pag-aaklas;
Ang demokrasya’y nakamtan muli sa wakas.

Nguni’t sa paglipas ng taon, tila may nagbago;
Ang kalayaan at demokrasya na ating natamo—
Ay nabale-wala at ngayo’y inaabuso;
Ng mismong mamamayan lalo na sa liderato;
Masasayang na lang ba ang ipinaglaban dito?

Para bagang isang bulkan ang bayan kong sinilangan;
Madalas ang hidwaan, paminsa’y nagpuputukan;
Mga lider ng pamahalaan gayun din ang mamamayan;
Kailan ba matatapos yari itong kaguluhan;
At magigising ang bayan sa kawalang paki-alam?

Ganito ba ang mukha ng demokrasya sa ‘ting bansa?
Na ang mga lider ay walang malasaki’t sa kapwa?
Na sa tuwing halalan lang sila naalala?
Kaawa-awa naman ang mga maralita’t dukha;
Sa yaman at posisyon ang ilan ay nagpapasasa.

Tayo ng kumilos, baguhin ang pananaw;
Ating tahakin ang landas, gabay ng bagong araw;
May pag-asa pa ang bayan, liwanag ay tanaw;
Itaguyod, ipaglaban kalayaang ating sigaw;
Demokrasya ng bayan huwag muling pumanaw.

Our eternal flame, our Cory – PDI Editorial

Our eternal flame, our Cory

Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:37:00 08/02/2009

MANILA, Philippines—When the light of Cory Aquino’s life, flickering as it had been, in the final, painful, month of her hospital seclusion, was finally extinguished, the country had been, in a sense, expecting it. Yet the news was still received with shock; and grief has settled over the nation, uniting rich and poor, old and young, the partisan and the apathetic, men and women, soldiers and civilians.

 

Unity is a rare thing in our country; we have it now; and adding to the feelings of grief is the wistful realization that it took the passing of Cory to reunite a divided nation.

In 1948, with trembling voice, Jawaharlal Nehru informed his people of the passing of Mahatma Gandhi with these immortal words: “The light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere.” There was no single great national figure to inform the country of Cory’s passing; instead, a quiet announcement came from her grief-stricken son, and there began the passing on of the news, and the sharing of fond memories.

It is only fitting that the Filipina who tried to institutionalize active non-violence in our bloodstained political culture inspired a similar sense of loss among Filipinos as that expressed by Nehru. Gandhi inspired Cory’s husband; and what Ninoy set out to do, she continued after his cruel murder. Non-violence has been, ever since, the dominant means to accomplish change in our country—a revolution in thought, accomplished by prayers, marches, candlelight vigils.

“The light that has illumined this country for these many years will illumine this country for many more years,” Nehru went on to say, “and a thousand years later, that light will be seen in this country and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts.”

What was that light? It was the small but steady flame of personal conviction and conscience that never flickered even when the country and those she considered her nearest and dearest shunned her—ignoring her, even castigating her, because her husband chose to endure imprisonment rather than submit to the dictator.

It was a light that comes from a faith that led her to kneel, not in submission or surrender to the brutality and blandishments of the dictatorship, but to scrub the cell of her imprisoned husband on the rare occasions she was able to visit him; and which continued to bring her to her knees, in quiet contemplation and prayer, as she and her husband went into exile and then, in the years after his death, when his cause became hers to take up.

It was the light of liberty, the unquenchable flame of democracy, the light of optimism and faith in the Filipino, snuffed out in her husband’s case by an assassin’s bullets, but which lit so many more little flames, so that it dispelled the darkness that had engulfed the country since 1972. It was a light that could not be extinguished by coups and natural disasters, by the mocking of those who saw in her merely a woman, merely a widow, merely a person trying to return power where it belonged—in the people’s hands, to do with as they chose.

Cory Aquino’s inner light came to the fore once more, after she relinquished power—the only president in our history who never actively sought power but actively sought to relinquish it, fully and on time, once she had that power. It made her stand up whenever democracy was imperiled; she was applauded for it, and jeered for it; others still could not understand what was so clear to her. That incomprehension was born of such critics never having fully understood that inner light, which never required the active quest for popularity that marks the mere politician.

This was the light we took from Ninoy and Cory, which we passed from candle to candle, as we all proclaimed it would be better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. This was the light that was celebrated in our supreme moment of national redemption and vindication.

But for now, hearts are heavy; and there will take place the final series of farewells, from the humble to the great panoply of the honors of State; but throughout, we shall be—as she was—bringers and nurturers of the light, a light that shall never go out so long as the love of liberty burns brightly in our hearts—as it now, eternally, does in Cory’s and Ninoy’s.

As for the rest—the pomp and circumstance that surround the passing of a former head of state—her final wishes as expressed by her family are instructive. The cannons of the military boomed their hourly salute; the flags will be lowered to half staff; a simple guard of honor will keep vigil. But as for everything else, the pomp Ferdinand Marcos craved from embittered exile, Cory with utter simplicity declined. Her sole accompaniment as she goes to her final resting place beside her beloved Ninoy will be those for whom Ninoy died and for whom she lived: we, the people, without distinction as to protocol, or station in life. As in 1983, so it is in 2009: Cory, the people, together to demonstrate that the real power, glory and honors are not for officialdom to bestow, but instead, the Filipino people’s to freely give. And as it was in 1986 so it is now: united, in the streets, in remembrance and democratic dedication to our eternal flame, our Cory. So let these days of mourning be days of commemoration, of savoring, however briefly, that long-elusive sense of national unity we must aspire to always. And let us march, as we had marched,—not merely to bid farewell, but to continue along the path from which too many have strayed: the path of an uncompromising, stubborn dedication to the fight for liberty.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/editorial/view/20090802-218341/Our-eternal-flame-our-Cory

The Silent Battle, the Quiestest War

We have been hearing lately that Pres. Cory Aquino is under her own battle of the colon cancer. Under close watch and prayers of her family and the whole nation, everything that could happen is left under God’s power and guidance.

During her last SONA in 1991, Pres. Cory said this words which became a premonition:

“My responsibility as a Filipino, for the well-being of my country, goes beyond it to my grave…”

Another war has begun, the quietest war. The Filipino is truly worth dying for.

For all of us Filipinos believing in true democracy, we are behind you Pres. Cory: In your battles, in your war, in your fights against the great cancers this country once again is now facing: INDIFFERENCE, SELF-CENTERED GOVERNANCE, and the MESSING UP OF DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS inflicted by this present government manifested by its symtoms: CORRUPTION, DEPOSTISM, ELITISM, POVERTY AMONG MANY OF OUR PEOPLE, DECEPTION FROM THE CENTER.

Now you joined our Creator and your husband Ninoy in heaven, we know that you will still pray and even fight for us. We will continue your LABAN here. We will fight these social ills and cancers that are still plaguing and menacing our country and our people.

Farewell former Pres. Tita Cory Aquino, thank you for freedom and democracy. Thank you for your moral leadership that inspired many of us Filipinos. Thank you for this legacy. Truly the Filipino is worth dying for. We love you.

cory wishes healing for nation, says priest

Michael Jackson 1958-2009 : icon, epic, timeless, artist, genius, master, entertainer

 icon, epic, timeless, artist,  genius, master, entertainer – there are more but these are just the few words that describe michael jackson so perfectly well. from his childhood to adulthood, he knew what those words meant and he lived them. we pay tribute to one of the greats of music.

PinoYouTube – have a laugh or a cry

there must be thousands of them out in the wilds of YouTube. we will hunt them and put them all here for the glory or gory and for tears or laughter.

view them here: http://pinoyoutube.wordpress.com/

view this pinoy dancing to beyonce’s “single ladies”. also pay attention to the pilipino lyrics of the sone. click here and leave a comment of praise or dismay: http://pinoyoutube.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/hala-bira-beyonces-single-ladies-ala-pinoy/

we disagree with the senators on con-ass

not that we hate the senators, but to me time is not the issue for junking con-ass. the key issue is that the people do not want it. that is the first reason, bar none.

that can be founded on many things – it can come from mistrust of arroyo, the fear that somehow term extension will be inserted. people are not only tired of arroyo, they can’t push time to be quicker to see her move out of malacanang. if an inventor finally designs a time machine, i am sure most filipinos will donate their hard earned money to buy one to use it just once – to fast forward time to may 2010.

read in full here: http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/we-disagree-with-the-senators-on-con-ass/

on penny changes done on traffic scheme – “ateneo doesn’t care”

comment posted here: http://wawam.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/a-covered-parking-lot-for-teachers-at-the-ags-amiel-alcantaras-death-aftermath/

Despite our appeals to Ateneo to do something RADICAL, it looks like they have chosen to implement something MARGINAL.

I downloaded and studied the staggered dismissal schedules that Ateneo Grade School posted on their website. Loooks to me like there is a typographical error in the post, because my Grade 4 son commented that Grades 6 and 7 will spend less time in school than Grades 4 and 5. He commented that it was unfair to him that his brother in Grade 7 will get away with less hours in school.

Either he is right or the posted schedule is wrong. Taking a look at the schedule, it can only be correct if they removed the period either for Intramurals or Co-Curricular Activity from the schedule for Grades 6 and 7. Please validate.

Given that the success of the scheme is hinged on fetchers picking up the boys on a staggered basis, Ateneo has to ensure that fetchers know what the correct dismissal schedule is. Relaying unverified or inaccurate information will turn the entire Katipunan into a traffic nightware, don’t you think?

I am disaapointed in the solution being presented now. I had hoped for a better quality solution. It seems to me that the Multi-Stakeholder Committee created their solution in a vacuum, ignoring all the comments and suggestions of well-meaning parents.

Oh well . . . we won’t know anything until we give the scheme a try.

no to con-ass!

2009 philippine congress = house of RAPISTSentatives “announces they will commit a crime”

father bernas, SJ is a reknowned expert on the constitution and the law says what the congressmen did was to announce they will commit a crime when they passed HR 1109. fr. bernas was being very kind.

what the congressmen did was a gang rape of the country and democracy, the constition it’s first victim. that earns the 2009 philippine congress the title House Of Rapistsentatives.

read in full here:  http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/fr-bernas-house-of-rapistsentatives-announced-theyll-commit-a-crime/

cocaine found in Red Bull – will it push up its market share or kill the brand?

news report: traces of cocaine found in red bull sold in hong kong.

HONG KONG (AFP) – Hong Kong officials say they have found traces of cocaine in cans of Red Bull, a few days after Taiwanese authorities confiscated close to 18,000 cases of the popular energy drink.

——–

we ask this in all seriousness – this news on article that there are traces of cocaine in the energy drink Red Bull – will that increase it’s market share or kill the brand?

read in full here: http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/2009/06/cocaine-in-red-bull-will-it-push-its.html

Fr. Ed, The Unlikely declares presidential bid – is he the way out of the cross for the philippines?

Fr. Ed, The Unlikely

fr. ed, the unlikely started just like that – the unlikely winner who won the pamanga election. there are many more things this fr. ed has done that at the beginning were things he was unlikely to do or ahieve. but he did.

with his declaration for his desire to be president of the country, will fr. ed, the unlikely, deliver the country from cross?

read or comment here: http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/

American Idol Season 8, Top 36 – changed for the better

there is a change in season 8 of american idol. it is palpable and it’s a very good change. it repspects the current american psyche.

read about it here: http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/

chris brown do not just bite, he also chewed

chris brown not only bites, he chews! that’s chewing on wrigley doublemint gum, one of the endorsement deals with chirs brown that is for now on hold.

wrigley’s announced they will for now stop airing the chris brown ad until the what brown did to rihanna is resolved, which included biting his girlfriend.

view the ad and read more here: http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger of Flight 1549, the man “doing the right thing” made a hero – reunion with passengers

we can’t  have enough of this man and what he has done. CBS will air an interview with him and the crew on their 60 Minutes show, it is a must see.

view some excerpts from the CBS show here : http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/

photo: http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/monday/news/ny-etsull096029870feb09,0,949554.story

starbucks puts on hold world domination push

world domination for starbuck is on hold, for two reasons. read about it here: http://the-wawam-file.blogspot.com/

manny villar’s “itik” ad revised to correct continuity error

on january 26, 2009, we posted at 2010 presidentiables villar’s ad at youtube that had a continuity error – villar at the middle of the ad was shown wiping his dirty hand on his shirt but at the end of the ad, villar’s shirt turned miraculously clean. continuity is a very basic production and editing watch out. committing it is a mortal sin.

they have now revised the ad to correct the continuity error. read about it here : http://2010presidentiables.wordpress.com/

view this ad with the continuity error: