Where were you when Ondoy hit?  I was at home in Antipolo (Rizal), wondering why the rains from Friday night was.not.stopping.  Power was going in-and-out, the internet was gone and there was no cable.

‘Til it turned 6 in the evening.  The power was completely gone, and the rains would hit at a strong constant rate for the next few hours.

Out of boredom, I tried browsing Twitter/Plurk on the mobile — opening both would take all of 15 minutes, including the connection timeouts and whatnot.  Me and my cousin had no idea that the nation was already undergoing a crisis — that, places that normally don’t get flooded were getting hit, concrete walls crashing down and cars towed by the current as if they were nothing.

We tuned in the radio on our phones — and most phones only get FM radio — we tuned in to Jam 88.3, where Gang Badoy and Lambert  have turned Saturday evening programming into public service radio, relaying vital bits of information, like numbers and places — from eyewitness reports.  People would call in asking the status, and they would relay back if they heard anything.

News about Marikina hit me quite particularly — a couple close friends live there, and they weren’t answering their phones.

Our house in Antipolo was pretty high up — it wouldn’t be ’til the next day when we would hear that parts of it, the houses with nearby creeks have suffered flood damage — including Mikko’s house — as he sent a message that they evacuated their house and stayed with their aunt.

Things could be replaced, but not people.

I think I heard Kash call up the radio station, but she used a different name.

At around 11 in the evening, the rains have stopped — followed by eerie silence.  This was broken when we heard a neighbor going, “O, kumain ka na? /  Oh, have you eaten yet?” referring to a relative who had apparently been on the road since early Saturday afternoon.  He walked home.

I had woken up Sunday morning just as the power went out.  Still no cable.  Radio on the phone says relief efforts by various groups have been organized — as much as me and the cousin wanted to help out, Cainta/Marikina were the places where the flood hit the worst.  The absolute worst — we had no means to get through.

By evening, the power was back on — still no cable, still no net and still no phone lines.

Yestarday, cable was an on-again-off-again affair.  Saw bits of the flood flash by the news, like the video where the cars were towed around a parking lot?  Or the one where the outside of their house looked like a junk yard?  Tweeted via phone to let everyone who was contacting know that I was alright —  my phone’s backlight just went out — cutting me off even more.

Neighbors have been telling us that ways out of Antipolo were not passable — wasn’t able to leave Antipolo.

Raphy was buying a shovel.  Half of their house is ruined, and this is pretty much the first time I heard him without a joke, or a laugh.  He lives in Provident Village, Marikina.

Girl of my (sometimes) dreams was playing Mafia Wars — which tells me her part of the world’s okay.

Murky water comes out the faucet.

A coupla officemates were sounding off  — turns out a lot of ‘em didn’t show up for work too.  Gisa and Jaydee did volunteer work, and the rest were let out early.

I think Jayboie hit it right on the head on his Facebook status: “In this calamity, I think the internet community was more helpful than the government, and was quicker to report than mainstream media. It’s a new world order.“

Not only has several people set up sites, spreadsheets and whatnot, but information dissemination through Twitter, Facebook, etc and their sharing tools has enabled a quicker relay of what was going on, in real time.

Not that this is all everyone did — it also prompted several groups and individuals to take action / coordinate action— to consolidate donations, segregate and repack them for people in need.

Each one acted like a node to form a connection to the bigger machine — the machine of hope, acting in singularity — showing us that WE can.

I learned that when you focus on solutions, even the small ones — it connects to form the bigger ones — the ones that loom over any problem.

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