MY WET MEMORIES

Its not what youre thinking, silly. It is about the other half of our two-season weather system. And am talking about the wet season here, my man. No, not the wet season you love to indulge but the rainy days. Specifically, this is about my memories of typhoons. MY WET YOUTH In my youth, there was this strong typhoon that veered off its usual Bicol and Samar entry point and instead crossed the Visayas. It was still in a period when watermelons were being disembarked by the truckloads at Libertad Market in Bacolod, which is a stones throw away from our house. Instead of todays styro-wrapped fresh produce, fruits during those days were being hawked displayed either in kaing, bilao or, in the case of watermelons, in full naked glory, occupying the sidewalks by the hundreds. Libertad Market is, by stroke of urban planning genius, barely 200 meters away from Lupit River one of Bacolods major waterways that has since dried up thanks in part to Bacolod Murcia Milling Company and the growing subdivisions in the greenfields that were once the dominion of the Gonzaga clan (heirs to the last Spanish boss chief of Bacolod who was tricked into submission by the local elite, not without retaining vast tracts of friar lands that stretch from Bacolods shoreline by the plaza all the way to the foothills in the eastern part of the vast plain). This typhoon visited Negros when Lupit River was on its way to its current sorry state, when settlers turned every available land of public domain their version of Far and Away (a Tom Cruise film, remember?), outracing each other for a piece of sweet Negros soil. I woke up that morning to the sounds of trees breaking their branches and the wind whistling its wrath. We had a balcony then that overlooks our street Doa Juliana, named after the Gonzaga matriarch where we watch life in the city unfold. On that morning, too much rain caused flooding, the water breaching the banks of Lupit River. In one of the most memorable images I can still today, I saw hundreds upon hundreds of the green orb floating as the flood swept Libertad Market of anything that were not permanently attached to the ground. It was a flood of watermelons, bobbing up and down the fast current, as if Goliath morphed into a Paeng Nepomuceno-Mark Spitz hybrid. The sight of green cantaloupes - pale green, dark green, striped green, the red and the yellow innards of the wasted fruits racing down the road is something one will never forget in his lifetime.

WETLY BAPTIZED Has anybody seen this flock of religious people dunking their new members by the river in a baptismal ceremony? I witnessed them during my youth in, again, my beloved Lupit River when it was still good enough to swim, just behind the hacienda of the Gonzagas, the area now occupied by Moslem settlers who once flooded Bacolod with batik, sotanghon, Ma-Ling and methampethamine hydrochloride. Wellgetting wet is a way of being baptized, I suppose? Guys may say no but in fairness to the first-timing guys, theyre not really that wet theyre stiff! Oh, maybe the girls were wet during their baptism thats why consummation occurred. In law school, we too were baptized. In a wet fashion. Freudians, hold your horses. This is not what youre thinking, fellas! During our first year, the inevitable camaraderie, flirtings and market positioning was on top of most peoples minds. And so it was Our baptism of fire, the Preliminary Exams, came in the last week of July. After a week of exam, with bravado still as high as ones ego, majority of the class showed up in our first ever booze date. At Booze Stop Kamagong, a perfect name for a boozing bunch. The entire class showed up, save for some who were not informed nor interested, to strut their beer guzzling throats. We left Booze Stop an hour after midnight. It was a rainy night. A rainy night the Filipino nation will never forget. Tita Cory - mother to Kris and PNoy, the woman in yellow who, along with the Filipino people and such personalities as Joker, Rambolito, Rene, Bert, Ka Tanny, Nene and Lean Alejandro, defanged an entrenched dictator who everybody believe ordered the murder of his husband Ninoy passed away in the very first hours of that fateful August 2009 after a long bout against the Big C. We were unaware, naturally, of her demise until the zing of malt restored our senses the morning after. In fact, most of my classmates did not even know the story behind why Tita Cory, the mother who unified a fragmented yet restive nation, used yellow as her symbolic color. Heck, most of them were not even born yet when we were battling the cops during the dying years of Marcos. All they know about is Kris and his succession of hunks and gigolos.

For me, that was a symbolic night. A night when the earth cried over the pending demise of democracys greatest icon this side of the planet. And, of the 365 days, God willed it to end her agony on the first few hours of August. Maybe it was Gods way of reminding the Filipino people about Ninoy, who was brutally murdered on a sunny August afternoon in an airport now named after him. Ninoy, the idealist of a trapo who consorted with the likes of Dante Buscayno, also celebrates his birthday every August. That was the baptism for my classmates in law school who are too young to even care about the Hukbalahaps of yore in lieu of the latest cellphone model. They were wetly baptized on Philippine democracy, ironically on the death of our countrys democratic icon. I hope and pray, will even go to the length of petitioning God, that these young turks that make my stay in law school a pleasant ride, will fight for the very ideals of democracy that they take for granted. ONDOY AND MY WET UNDERWEAR In September 2010, climate change taught Manila and nearby communities a lesson they will never forget. Again, Freudiansthis is not Maria Ozawa masquerading as a teacher. Please Six hours of heavy rain dumped a months volume of rain over Luzon as Typhoon Ondoy hits landfall in Southern Luzon. Clogged sewage, silted rivers, encroached riverbanks and wanton waste mismanagement in a megalopolis that is Manila turned Marikina Valley into what it geographically is a water catchment basin, the Metro Manila-Rizal version of Candaba in Pampanga. The only difference is that Marikina, Cainta, Pasig, Pateros, Taguig and the rest of Metro Manila are no longer ricefields like Candaba, but an unmanageable city of undisciplined inhabitants. What could be more exciting for me than to shoot photographs to my hearts delight, with the militarys top gears on board old but dependable Hueys? This is a prolonged period of capturing the best of what the Filipinos can become during calamities, both in pictures and in stories distributed to media outlets as part of the Philippine Air Forces public affairs operation. I was there, right in the heart of the operation, guiding overeager neophytes how and what to shoot, churning out human interest stories to let the world know that the Filipino airmen can be a force to reckon with in disaster operations.

It was best remembered by an experience I once had during the Pinatubo era wetting ones underwear in the chase for great photographs. And, of course, meeting the then boss chief of disaster operations Defense Secretary Gibo up close and personal, sharing cigarettes in the middle of a flooded community. His work ethic contaminated everybody, me included. WET IN TAFT No. You get it right. This is not about getting wet and wild, nor wet and tough, but about getting wet in Taft. Taft Avenue, a city artery named after Howard where my school smugly sits. June 23, 2011 broke out in a rainy dawn. Typhoon Falcon is in town. What a name! I can still remember the Pinoy James Bond in white suit, oversized collar and removable lump of hair. But this Falcon is something else. It gets everybody wet, though some am sure went direct to their favorite hiding places to get a different kind of wetness upon the signal that classes were cancelled. I opted to drop by my study buddys dorm to check out her new Samsung netbook. Cool gadget though it wasnt properly charging that night because of a lousy power adaptor. This is another story of being wet. Literally. With a laptop in my backpack and a cellphone in my pocket, I ventured out to wade my way to anywhere I can get a ride home. Which turned out to be a night of mixed stories snooped along the way, from the salty air of Taft Avenue to the hills of Guadalupe. NOTE : This is up for development. Am off for now. Just check out my pictures.