WHEN WE WERE KIDS

By Pietro BS Albano


It was in the early 80s when it started to flood --- on a sunny day, mind you! It becomes worse when rains started to pour. These high tides came even during Christmastime. Actually, they start to arrive in May. Strangely, people managed to have their firecrackers lit during New Year’s Eve. So used have we been to them that whenever the year ends, we looked forward to our Chinaman neighbour’s calendar gifts with high tide predictions. Streets near the Estero de Sunog Apog like Gapan, T Earnshaw, Cavite, V del Fierro, and Antipolo were virtually erased from the map of Gagalangin at certain times of the day (or night) whenever the sea level rises.

It was a patintero with the grimy waters. You have to wake up early for work or church before seeing a millilitre of flood. One time I went to church wearing short pants. I later washed and changed before serving at Mass. On occasions that I have to go to church or elsewhere and go home late at night, I have to fold my pants – thank God they’re loose! – several times before I started to test the waters. They’re cool at times, but I was afraid to stay for long lest I fall prey to leptospirosis.

When T Earnshaw St was up to its eyeballs, I have to go to Rotonda to catch a jeepney. On the transport, you could hear various stories from co-passengers who braved the floods. Jeepney drivers are known to be wise guys every time this catastrophe hits the town. There’s re-routing to this and that street and before you know it, you’re either in Balut or back to Blumentritt.

Gagalanginenos were resourceful though; the sidecar became real and made its dwelling among us! However, you have to pray hard that the chap on the wheel won’t slap you with an exorbitant fee.

Yet floods have been a headache across Manila. After Gagalanginenos went through with the floods in their own yard, here comes another treat in Blumentritt: flood plus a network of neighbours. One home along the riles would welcome you into their abode so you can cross through a makeshift bridge to another home. Just don’t forget to drop your piso in the collection tabo.

People tended to say nasty things about Gagalangin being a flooded area. That’s already history. Now we are grateful that things got better when a pumping system was introduced in the early 90s. So successful it has been that Gagalangin remained “dry” while its neighbours submerge in water. I just hope that both the government and people would cooperate in maintaining and upgrading this project for years and generations to come. I hope too that this respected district of Manila will rise from the other floods that have inundated it up to this time: poverty, drugs, materialism, and dirty politics.

posted by Tanghalang Anluwage, Inc. @ 10:50 AM