An Evacuation Center in Pasig

This will be the first of three posts regarding the flooding caused by the recent monsoon storms this past week.

This past Saturday, a fellow cadet alumni and myself joined Rescue 926 and CRS-AFP DRTU on Relief Operations in Baranggays Rosario and Kalawaan in Pasig City. Baranggay Rosario was pretty straight-forward. The baranggay officials asked the evacuees to line up, and the relief goods were delivered in an orderly manner. Afterwards, they got all the evacuees to exercise because they'd been (according to the lady on the microphone) mostly eating and sleeping for the past few days.

The exercises were fun (stick your arms out! Then Up! Side! Down! Up-side-down!) so adults with a sense of humor and even the youngest kids could enjoy it. While we were there, a woman paused the work to announce that another neighborhood had finally dried out, and it was safe for those residents to go home. The mayor of Pasig even arrived, and warned them, as he had done numerous times before, that they had built their homes on a danger zone. It was such a relief to see that not all officials coddle the squatters who vote for them.

We left as the noon heat approached, and our army truck rumbled us bumpily to our next destination. As we drove, it seemed like every baranggay hall had been turned into an evacuation center, and other organizations had filled in any gaps, so no baranggay was forgotten.

Despite the touch of summer heat and cloudless sun, not all the flood waters evaporated. The streets surrounding Pasig's city center were swamped, and many had made rafts or ferried passenger by raised bike-carts. Further along, many streets had a well-developed system of raised wooden walkways, but I'll get back to that in another post.


The flood waters we drove through got deeper and deeper, until finally we reached Kalawaan. After the locals moved some boats, our truck was able to back up to their front step. Otherwise, we would have had to wade through flood waters to reach them.

A crowd flocked to the entrance as we arrived. I made my way through that and finally got a good look inside the place.

"This is a real evacuation center," Sir Rodil told me as we stood inside the basketball court of Kalawaan, Pasig. The floor was crowded with woven mats, and at least a dozen thin wooden benches seperated blocks of 9-12 banigs. Those whose banig mats were too small, or those who had none, used empty sacks and cardboard to insulate them from the concrete floor. One fortunate family had children's foam puzzle mats, but maybe that isn't much of fortune after all. A large green tent gave shade and shelter to about six families. Each family seemed to have two square meters to themselves, and no walls, except for one family which had the foresight to bring their own camping tent, affording them the most privacy of the dozens of families crowded into that hall.

The parents, the adults formed messy lines based on the instructions of a baranggay woman with a loudspeaker.

Children ran and played across this room, some older siblings carrying the smaller ones if they fell and cried. In the places we'd seen previously, the children played outside as well, but the flood waters here stopped at the steps of this hall.

Sir said he worried most for the children.

But they seemed unaware of any problem. They ran and played. One boy did cartwheels in a clear space. Kids crowded around and grinned for pictures, some jumping in front of others and all enjoying the picture taking, few even caring to see what they looked like once the picture had been taken. The youngest eyed my camera and myself with amazement, pointing tiny fingers at the faces they knew on the screen. Half of the children were in clothes at least a size too big for them, but that's normal. If Olandes on a sunny day could amaze me, then what more of Kalawaan after the storm?

Asking around, I found out that nobody here was being sent home yet. The flood waters had risen instead of sinking due to rain during the night. Some people had been here for three days, some for five.

One didn't need to ask how they were faring here. The chain-link fences of the basketball court were festooned with drying laundry. Some families had the modesty to cover their drying underwear with a drying shirt or similar. Privacy was minimal, and food was modest. A man who was opening up a container of rice and fish or shrimp told me, "Kain na," the traditional invitation to eat with them. I smiled and declined, knowing I'd packed my own food and the invitation didn't require one to actually join in their simple meal.

A real evacuation center. To look at the whole space was a bit overwhelming, so I tried to focus on a family at a time, a group of kids playing here, old women tending to their toddling grandchildren there. And then I saw a woman smile. She and her son sat on what was probably an old tarp, and she'd just unpacked a banig, blankets, and clothes from the relief package she'd received. It wasn't much, but wherever I looked, mothers pulled clothes from those plastic bags and either handed it to their children or tried it on themselves. Dresses, shirts, etc, as though each bag had been meant just for that family. The kids trotted happily away, sucking on chocolate milk cartons or eating dry milk powder like candy from their packets. It wasn't much, but they were happy.

I hope I never need to take shelter in an evacuation center. I remember that during and after Hurricane Katrina, countless stories of horrific crimes flooded out of Louisiana and spread from there like a disease - families seeking shelter became helpless victims to inhuman low-lives, robbery being the least of it.

I was glad to see that in the Philippines, that problem is not as bad. We don't turn into beasts when we lose electricity, when our homes fill with water that does not belong there. We do not depend on convenience alone. At the height of the storm, though looting was a fear for some, what we saw more were people helping their countrymen. And that is part of the best of humanity - that when disaster strikes, we can help our neighbors.

The Storm, day Two

This is the rain that started at 3pm and lasted for two hours. It was stronger than the rain yesterday, a lot stronger. Throughout yesterday's hours of rain, I could still see most of the city outside my window. Kanina... I couldn't. And as the storm left, there was frost on my window. Friends taking shelter here said the cold outside was just a shade warmer than the fridge. Power is still on here, but we cooked all the spoilables yesterday just in case.

Its the second day of a super-powered monsoon storm. The rains yesterday exceeded that of Ondoy in 22 hours, and the flooding is pretty bad. Strangely, this is no typhoon. Its monsoon rains 'amplified' by a large typhoon that is outside of our range. So we have none of the winds. Just constant, pouring, heavy rain.

I know people whose homes are in easily flooded areas, and I know people who are probably out in those areas right now, risking life and limb to rescue all the stranded.

The rain this afternoon was a surprise as the morning was relatively rain-free, though grey. And considering how this has worsened flooding, I find it unlikely to hear from my friends who are out there in this danger. Or who wait for word from their families, or who seek a chance to go home.

And... I'll just make way now so my friends here can post and repost emergency data.

Not Quite Venice

 I close my eyes on the ride back, and I hear the water more than the engine that strains against it. I hear the peaceful, constant lapping of waves against a not-so-distant shore, the crashing of white froth against unmovable cliffs.

But this is neither sea nor lake. I open my eyes and this is a town, Obando and Valenzuela in Bulacan. The shores are the driveways of homes built higher than the narrow streets, and the cliffs are the walls of the homes bordering this street-turned-creek.

It is nearing noon-time, high tide, and I'm in an army truck with Rescue 926, Citywatch, and soldiers from the 56th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army. We'd just finished disaster relief at a barangay in Obando.

A few dozen families were taking refuge in a day care center at their Barangay Hall, and Rescue 926 delivered relief goods while the paramedics of Citywatch treated those with injuries. The doctor who usually joins them was unable to, so the medical mission will be scheduled at a later date.

I'd been on two medical missions before this - one past Las Pinas ten years ago and another in Cebu two summers back with a different group. This time, I helped document interviews with the people we were helping out. Turned out their homes had been in the flooded areas we'd passed on our way there, places where the water could get waist deep for any standing person. I'd noticed that some homes which were built on lower ground had their entire first floors and carports filled with water neck-deep. Some homes had been better planned, and sari-sari store customers could stand on a just-barely-dry step to reach the shop's window.

The area is easily flooded, but the people we helped were jovial and warm, explaining how they often received "biyaya ng Diyos" or blessings from God. We weren't the first people to deliver relief goods there, and we wouldn't be the last.

As we packed to leave around 11am, something surprised us. Water was beginning to splash onto the dry street in front of the Barangay Hall and daycare center, coming from across the street. With every minute it gained another few feet towards us, and by the time we got on the trucks, the street was ankle-deep in water and the tide continued to push on towards their daycare sanctuary. High tide, they said without worry. They were used to it.

As we rode back through deeper floodwaters, rain started. The trucks struggled at the deeper spots and at times I feared the water would reach us inside the trucks, but it stayed -just- below that level. Had we left any later, we would have been stranded. Then I understood why the Mayor had used army trucks for the 'libreng sakay' - it was the only vehicle besides boats and padjaks that could make it through the flooded streets without stalling. 

There are words I could use to describe this experience that could make me seem like a real tourist or valley girl, but... I wasn't around for Ondoy, and outside of watching the carabao statues along the Marikina River occasionally submerged, this was the first time since Katrina and Memphis 2011 that I'd witnessed real flooding and its effects.

Things could have been much worse. Not just for them, but for us too. Some medical missions get mobbed if they don't have good security or crowd control or coordination with local government.  And the area is flood prone.  My friends say the flooding is even worse when they open the dams. The tributaries have been blocked up, and the only place for the water to go are where these towns have planted themselves. The people living here cope with the water by cementing their lots, building higher, using padjak or libreng sakay to get around. They're accustomed to walking through floodwaters, and besides inconveniencing most of them, it doesn't affect their lives. But what'll happen if those dams ever break? If this is what Obando looks like during normal flooding...

Meet the M-14

         Some weeks back, I was snapping pictures in the DMST when something special arrived. There'd been a request for M-16s so the cadets could learn how to field strip them, so a few rifles were sent. But one rifle wasn't an M-16.

         It looked just like our dummy rifles, the wooden antiques that go clack clack if their metal innards still work. The dummy rifles that we march and drill with, that we clamber over muddy grassy hills during the fun practicals with. The dummy rifles that my generation has not seen the original of.

         And there it was, the M-14.

The rifle of their memories, as though they'd remembered their first girlfriends. Its been almost ten years since an M-14 was last seen in the DMST.

          Any man over 30 present immediately grew nostalgic at its sight. Back in their day, the armory was full of these, these heavy creatures which they marched and drilled with, which they clambered through muddy carabao fields and stinking canals with. Unlike the M-16, to field strip one of these was not a simple understanding of mechanisms but a feat of strength, and they'd prided themselves in their skill with these, to be able to field strip it with speed even while blindfolded.


          This was the rifle of their youth.


           I've been with the Corps for about three years now. I'd gotten to the point where only occasionally would a lecture interest me, and I wouldn't push to be first to shoot an M16. Been there, done that, let the new kids have their chance.

           But this strange new (old) thing fascinated me.

           I'd never handled a real M-14 before, just the dummy rifles. It looked just like what we practiced with, but this one worked. It was a fully functioning M-14.


           As the nostalgic men remembered their way into field stripping it, I watched intent. It took sir almost eight minutes (I videoed it), nothing close to the records of his day.
           When he'd finally snapped the trigger housing back in place, he hefted the rifle to his shoulder, gazed down the sights at a concrete wall across the quadrangle, pushed forward the safety, and pulled the trigger.
           Clack.
           Then he put it back on the table so the intently watching younger generation could have their chance.
           I was first in line. :D

           First, you clear the gun, set the safety on (the small rectangle of metal in the trigger guard is pushed back). Then you remove the trigger housing by pulling the trigger guard towards the stock and away from the rifle.
           The stock comes out easily enough, then for all the smaller metal pieces. The operating rod spring and operating rod spring guide are a tough area too - you have to secure both when you remove or place it, as the spring is really strong and could easily fly to hurt someone. The connector assembly is sort of tricky, but once you have it you can pull out the operating rod and then the bolt slides right out. 

           Once you have it all apart, the next challenge is learning how to put it all back together.

 It took a while...

And then to see if I'd gotten it all right. Safety off. Aim. Pull the trigger.
Clack.

          It was my first time handling an M-14, and even if I was just the Corps Photographer, when a group of cadets came by after my practice, I started explaining to them how to field strip an M-14, what all the parts are - everything that I had learned less than an hour earlier.
          I'd love to shoot one of these someday. :)


         But for now, I've got a camera to shoot with.
         More fun pics and stories to follow!

The Tale of the Creepy Taho Vendor!

 It was a Saturday in the DMST, busy with cadets training. They were seperated into groups, some outdoors, some indoors, each going over various subjects in preparation for an upcoming event. Plenty to keep a photographer busy with. I was walking to the next station when I saw a taho vendor walking along the asphalt road a little past the Cadets Lounge. Feeling thirsty, I stopped him and asked for a cup of taho, giving him a ten peso coin.

            Taho is a warm soy drink, to which a bit of syrup and tapioca bubbles are added for better flavor and texture. When taho is fresh, the stainless steel canisters are full of steaming white taho, a smooth surface only broken when the vendor takes shallow scoops with an angled spoon, pouring it into a cheap plastic cup.  He stops short of it being full, then flips open the lid on the smaller canister, and uses a smaller dipper to pour in the rich syrup and pale tapioca bubbles. Then he wipes the sticky rim of the cup on a clean rag up by the strong wire straps that connect the canisters to the long piece of wood he uses to carry the taho. Sometimes he'll give a plastic spoon with the taho, sometimes he's out of them. You can drink it either way.

            My friends explained to me, the first time I tried it, that taho can only be cooked a particular way. If its made wrong, or with bad water, then it won't be solid and it wont be taho. Also, food vendors are only allowed into UP after getting a special permit – so the street food inside campus is generally safe.

            The wrinkled, stooped old man in clean, new-looking clothes grinned and accepted my coin, and his reach wobbled towards his wares. He lifted the lid of the canister and hung it on the side of the can by a hook inside the lid. As he started pouring the taho into the plastic cup, something got my attention.

            The taho was broken up and watery, looking more like cottage cheese in a sad, cold broth than the warm soy drink I was familiar with. I realized – at the very least, he hadn't poured out the water that accumulated on the surface of the taho, like most vendors do. Wherever a taho vendor makes a cup of taho, he first skims the water off the surface with his spoon and throws it out, leaving a streak that the odd cat or other animals might enjoy the taste of. But the only water on the ground was from the old man's unsteady hands, the broken up bits of taho and watery whitish soup spilling over the sides of the spoon in its long journey to the plastic cup.

            "Uh, is that okay?" I asked him. He just grinned and kept on pouring. I'd asked in English and well... couldn't quite ask in Tagalog at the time. But even then, he grinned and poured his sloppy mess. As the cup neared full, he stopped, and flipped open the lid to the smaller canister. He pulled out the long dipper and – dear goodness, there was his mutant taho in there too! The syrup in the canister was not a deep, rich brown, but had been watered down to an orangey-yellow, and even the tapioca hadn't gone unmolested. The messy not-taho stuff was everywhere.

            The wrinkled old man grinned and his eyes sparkled as he presented me with my... order.

            

            What is this stuff? I quickly snapped a picture of it. I sniffed it. It smelled... not as tasty as taho. I took a sip. Shouldn't have. It was too watery and even the syrup could hardly be felt. I snapped another picture of it. If I die from this!

            At the long classroom, a squad practicing arnis were on their break so I wandered over and asked Valdez: "Is this safe to drink?"

            After a bit of explaining how it was funny-bad-taho, she realized it looked strange too. There were bubbles in it – not the tapioca bubbles but bubbles in the water, all throughout the thing.

            The old man had slowly made his way over by then, and she called him and asked to see the taho. He kept a grin, set down his canisters, and started scooping the watery slop into a plastic cup. Valdez leaned out the door as far as she could go to look into the canister, her hand on the door frame so she wouldn't take a step out of the room. There was still a cadet officer in the room.

            "Wuh-oh!" She told him to stop pouring 'taho', but he grinned and kept on going.

            A few more cadets began to crowd around the door, chatting. The creepy old man presented Valdez with a cup. Reluctantly, she gave him a coin and examined what she'd... bought.

            "Yeah, its not good."

            Just then, Pan made his way through the small crowd to the door. "Taho!" he happily noticed and pulled out his wallet. "Who wants taho?" he called back to his classmates. "Six po!" he told the old man.

            We tried to warn him but by then the old man had happily poured two of the cups, sploshing a mess of watery curdling taho and odds and ends all over the cement where he stood. Pan realized his mistake and called for the old man to stop, but he grinned and kept pouring.

            At this point, I was done taking pictures of the strange taho. I started taking pictures of the old man.  He might've been a little deaf, but by this point we knew he was pretending to be more deaf than he really was. Snap. Snap. Snap. This dangerous and creepy little old taho vendor needed to be documented. What if someone gets sick from this stuff? 

           I took a few more snaps for good measure, until finally they got him to stop pouring.

            In the end, most just threw the stuff away and got back to practice. Others saw the old man, wandering around the area for the rest of the day. Whatever was going on, maybe he had reason to grin. He was selling taho that wasn't made right, using his mask of feeble hearing as a way to force the unsuspecting to pay for something that wasn't safe to eat. I took note of his shirt – it looked brand new, and rather clean. It had some arabic and middle-eastern things on it. I don't know where he came from, and I don't think he was one of the normal UP taho vendors.

            But if you're ever in the area, and find this old man while seeking refreshments – be careful. What he sells might be as safe as spoiled milk.

Sad News

Now that finals are over, and its vacation, I'll get back to posting.
My cameras- both the small digicam and my DSLR - have been stolen. The CIDU (Criminal Investigation Detection Unit) are investigating, and so far they've been incredibly helpful though the thief has yet to be found. For the last two training days of the year, I borrowed Ryan Arana's camera. He's the new Corps Commander. Those two days were the Change of Command, 2011, and the second part of RAATI (the annual competition and grading of the various ROTC units across the Philippines). Pretty big events. And sadly, it feels really different to be using someone else's camera instead of my own.


Regarding the theft of my cameras:

I stayed at 91 Xavierville Avenue, Nueve Uno Building dormitory from December 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011, in a room for two but without a roommate for all but a single day of my stay there.
On March 1, 2011, at about 9-10am, Ms. Sylvia 'Biang' Cruz allowed a woman named 'Marge Balmaceda' and a maid into my room at Nueve Uno Bldg without my knowledge (she says she sent a text to what was then my broken cellphone number). 'Marge' was supposed to be my new roommate, and had paid in a check that day. The check had not yet cleared. Two hours later, the maid left my room and shortly after that 'Marge' left the building with a paper bag 'full of clothes'.

When I returned to my room, my locked cashbox inside a locked drawer had been pried open, and all my cash and even coins were missing. Also taken were my Blackberry handset and two Olympus digital cameras - one digicam and one DSLR, in total estimated worth about $1,000 USD.

Ms. Biang Cruz was initially very unaccomodating, going so far as to wipe the fingerprints off my cashbox while enlightening me on the corrupt and inefficient practices of police and barangay officers regarding thefts.
When a very helpful team of investigators and SOCO (Scene of the Crime Operatives - think Philippine CSI) showed up,  she then proceeded to insist in every way that the theft was not her fault. She blamed me for being unkind to the guards (as though a lack of communication justifies theft), she blamed the guards for not doing their job properly (but isn't it her job to tell them what she needs them to do?), she even tried to force the police to go away, but thankfully they don't need bribes to do their work.

On the lit signboard in front of the building, Nueve Uno Building is advertised as a place 'where comfort and security meet'. I assure you, you will find neither there.
Conveniently for someone, the CCTV has yet to be set up, the bag check is like what you'd expect at a mall, and the list of appliances and serial numbers provided to Mam and the guard to prevent theft of one's appliances is clearly not used.  Ms. Biang failed to clear the check or even get a copy of 'Marge's ID before allowing her unattended into my room.
When you get a room at Nueve Uno Bldg, Ms. Biang will assure you three times over that there are only TWO keys to your room - the key she gives you and the key she keeps. None of her maintenance, staff, guards, or anyone else has a spare key into the room, and it is up to you to make youself a spare key as well. She will promise you that nobody will be allowed into your room unattended, that when she shows your room to prospective new roomates, she will be there to keep an eye on things too. She restricts friends or relatives from going upstairs unless its on the day you're looking around or moving in. Heck, the friends who came to help me move out weren't even allowed to go up to my room with me, and after two small boxes, the maintenance staff just stood around downstairs. Ironically, the new guard opened every single suitcase and box in the lobby in an attempt to inspect that resulted in a mess that even the TSA wouldn' make! He literally used to be the janitor.
Her explanation for the restrictions was that she'd made sure to learn all the various methods used for thefts in dormitories, and this was her solution to them. Riiight. And regarding my lost items, Ms. Biang happily cited a part of the contract that states she is not liable in any way, for any loss or damages.


Oh, and the M.O. the thief used - to pay in a check that will bounce so they can get in to steal stuff- is commonly used, according to the police.
And when the cash box was dusted for prints, all that showed up were the long, streaking smears courtesy of Ms. Sylvia 'Biang' Cruz.

I don't know who to blame more - the fake roommate or her. Who knows? Maybe they work together.


---
MEANWHILE
I'm looking for a SAFER, MORE SECURE place to live for next year. And saving up for a new DSLR. My dad said he might buy me a new one when I graduate - in 2013.
And I'm reading up on photography. Haven't taken a class for it since 2001 and that was with black and white film. If I'm going to save up for a DSLR, I better know how to make the most use of it this time around.

Until then, this blog won't be lacking in material - I've still got all the loads of pictures I took over the past year to sift through.

Next:
The Tale of the Creepy Taho Vendor!

What is this stuff?

Saturdays

I'm not the only person taking pictures every Saturday morning while the cadets are jogging, training, listening to lectures and participating in activities. Sometimes, one of the Abad twins (cadets from last year) will drop by with a camera or two. But most of the time, its one of the cadet officer candidates (they're CP2Lts now, or Cadet Probationary Second Lieutenants, so congrats to them!) with the G-7's SLR. And its been a good thing, too, cause my cameras can occasionally be bratty, complaining of low batt only because I was taking pictures under the sunny heat, or getting all fuzzy and out of focus from low light (and a broken zoom lens on my smaller camera).

Since I'm not currently a cadet or anything, I don't wear a snappy uniform like that most of the time. They did, however, give me a uniform this year so I do bring it out when I can. :) Finally making use of my boots. And its been a fun year too, cause the ROTC facilities have been getting renovated. They haven't looked so pretty since probably before my dad's generation. Old and ratty sofa monsters being replaced with a new and functional set of white plastic chairs and mirror-surfaced meeting tables. A ceiling full of holes and leaks replaced (new roof, too!). New light fixtures, new wiring, electric fans for once, new windows, you name it! And the bathroom finally works again. I never could've dreamed it'd look like this back when I was a cadet.

Nostalgia and amazement aside, I basically still spend my Saturdays there. I may not be a cadet, (or cadet officer), but that doesn't mean I can't volunteer. My batchmate from back then is now the second female Corps Commander they've ever had, and she's doing pretty darn good job at it. :)

Meanwhile, its up to us photographers to keep on taking pictures, documenting training, events, renovations and everything else along the way.

Once in a while, I'll snap one of my fellow photographer.

And I do get snapped back too. :)

Some people sleep in on their Saturdays. They're missing out on all the fun stuff.