Manila Street

We didn’t have electricity in our house from September 26 to 28. So, we weren’t able to watch TV or listen to the radio. And since it was raining non stop during those days, we also didn’t bother to go out and buy a newspaper. In other words, we were completely unaware of the tragedy that jeopardized thousands of lives in Metro Manila. Is is such a blessing that our little house is located in a slightly elevated community so the flood was just a few inches above my knees. And I stand only 5′2″ so you can imagine the water was very shallow.

In the morning of September 28, I was disappointed and worried-sick that I couldn’t find a place with electricity to charge my phone. I had to inform my superiors that I wouldn’t be able to report for work because my family has been affected by the typhoon. Our sources of income were crippled by Mr. Ondoy. You see, I am not from a well-off family so the very old tricycle and the tiny sari-sari store are our only treasure. Me my brother needed to find a solution ASAP so we decided to borrow cash from Mrs. Money-Eater. Yeah I know it’s so cruel for me to label her such as that but I swear I couldn’t think of any other word that best describes her

Mrs. Money-Eater said she can lend us 2000 pesos, 20% interest, and we have to pay her every 15 days. According to her calculations, that’s 1,400 pesos every 15th day. Eink! I thought her calculator was just wrong or malfunctioning so I kindly asked her to compute it again which irritated the monkey. She told me one more time “1,400 every 15th day” which I disapprovingly questioned. That’s a total of 2800 pesos at the end of the month and that’s 40% interest not 20. I was hoping that she would realize her mistake but she said we can always walk away if we don’t like. Obviously, she was taking advantage of our situation. My brother backed out because it’s really stupid to agree with Mrs Money-Eater. So I admit, the blame is mine. I gave her my ATM for payroll, sort of collateral. Now I’m racking my brains on how am I going to pay such big interest. Waah, I know it’s always a mistake to talk about money in public but I just have to let it out (I guess this is the advantage of having a pen name). And nope, I’m not asking for alms, for heaven’s sake! So, don’t even think about it.

The morning after, I was really nervous when I came to work. I was paranoid to be exact. A lot of ugly things were going in my mind like will I get terminated for being absent without notice? Will my supervisor get mad and would require me to submit a written explanation? Thank God, it wasn’t half as bad as I thought. In fact, my office mates were happy to see me and were asking how I managed to swim from Manila to Parañaque. Haha! It turned out that it was okay that I wasn’t able to inform anyone about my situation because the Philippines is in a state of national calamity.

Later that night, we finally had electricity. I saw on news different faces of people asking for help, looking for lost loved ones, crying mothers, dead children. It was a disaster. Then I realized that my family is still blessed. We only lost material things and in a couple of months perhaps, we will be able to recover from all of these. Thank you Lord! I’m just praying for all the victims of the typhoon. Please help them all! And make sure your donations are given to true foundations, lots of scams out there.