NATURE'S VIRTUALLY SELECTIVE CURSE

It seems to me Mother Nature has been kind of selective in sending us its virtual curse.. 

During the last two weeks there was practically no letup in media reports about how Metro Manila and Luzon have been transformed by Gener's monsoon rains into something not unlike  Kevin Costners "Water World."  Heavy floods never before witnessed in these parts since Ondoy and Pedring are all over the place, especially in the metropolis.  In particular, no one, indeed, cannot but lament, as shown on on-the-sport TV footage, how residents of every wee district of Medro Manila lose lives and properties to the floods.

But haven't you wondered that there appears to be one district to be so uniquely immune from the ravages of these enormous floods?  The district of Tondo!  I don't know if it has ever come to others' observation that never has Tondo been covered by recent media reports on floods. For me, there seems to be a mystery.  For one thing, Tondo is comparatively as low a place and as near to the sea as Malabon and Navotas, where the least of rains tend to create  floods.  For another, if garbage-clogged esteros and sewers have always been the principal cause of flooding in the metropolis, can any other district match Tondo in that respect?

I have somehow shared this personal observation with some neighbors, some of whom saying that perhaps the media are afraid to visit Tondo, in turn tending to put it reatively on the sidelines.  I don't think so. At any rate, maybe -- well, just maybe -- people from government should find sometime looking deeper into this apparent miracle.  I mean, what is true in Tondo that is not true in any other district of Metro Manila.  Sino'ng mag-aakala?  Baka makapulot tayo ng kaunting aral sa mga taga Tondo na puwedeng gayahin ng iba pang distrito,  towards more or less taming down the unfortunate aftermaths of future floods.

Havubg saud the above, and going into relatively broader perspective, there are two other places in this country that have not been as horrendously ravaged by Nature's wrath as most others have been. I am proud to say that one is my very own hometown, Batangas City.  Sometime ago, I tried to count, but vainly, how many times Pagasa have included Batangas City in its typhoon signals  -- practically the whole province, for that matter, although I am not quite privy with the storm implications suffered by other Batanguenos for me to also speak for them in this regard.  The other place which methinks has been virtually exempt from Nature's might, as far as related news reports are concerned, is Cebu City.  I think most others will agree with me in this observation.

Well, in the absence of any possible logical explanation behind this seemingly mysterious fact, I could only manage to ask myself:  What is clearly in common among Tondo, Batangas City and Cebu City?    My ready  answer is: the patron saint of each one of them is the Sto. Nino,  annually venerated in January. 

I will certainly appreciate comments not only with respect to this particular blog, but to all others.  My  E-mail: rudycoronel2004@yahoo.com