Do you know that there is around 500 million dollars average annual loss in the Philippines because of floods? (more info about this through this
link). Philippines, being a tropical country, is famous world wide not only because of Manny Paquiao but also because of floods. During the first few years of my travel journey, around 2013, the famous Typhoon Haiyan or "Super Typhoon Yolanda" tragedy happened. And all of the people in the world heard the news about it. Every time I meet foreigners and I say that I'm a Filipino, they'll say they know Pacquiao and at the same time, they feel bad for the Philippines because of how typhoon Yolanda killed many people and destroyed voluminous amount of infrastructures. Boo! It almost destroyed my whole shoe collection! I could still remember that day when I was trying to save all of my hard-earned few shoe collection to fall in the flood.
By that time, I was already living alone in my life-independently. Super Typhoon Yolanda is not the only typhoon which gave a big impact in the country, there are several and one of these typhoons that I also couldn't forget was the typhoon Ondoy. Just a brief introduction and commercial, for those who still don't have any idea about my life background, my hometown is Malabon. And yeah, It's not unusual for me to hear everytime they ask me from what town am I and I answer I'm from Malabon, they'll always answer "Oh, diba laging baha duon?"
It's a flood area right?. No wonder that I already have a lot of experiences when it comes to floods. So, it was an early morning around September 2009, the sun has just risen and it's a good day for me since I don't have classes (I was in my first year college that time at UST)when my sister told me that I should wake up because there's already flood outside our house. I won't believe her because it's been a long time since the last time we experienced flood in our neighborhood- I could still reminisce the moments when I was around maybe 6 or 7 years old, when we evacuate our place because of flood- it happens every time it rains heavy! Eventually, after some years, it stopped flooding-I still don't know the reason why- until Typhoon Ondoy happened(2009). Going back to the story, since my sister was forcing me to wake up in the middle of my peaceful sleep - I needed to look outside the window only to see that she's telling the truth. The flood's height was around up to the ankle of an adult. It was alarming because yeah, it's been years since it happened-but not too much alarming that we didn't see what's coming. Just a few hours later, flood gets higher and higher- so high that no one could reach the ground level. Believe it or not, it may sounds funny, but there was a floating coffin, and even an almost drowning pig which people are trying to save. Like, damn, would you even dare to swim or make your feet touch the flood, seeing those scenes? Could you imagine what kind of diseases and bacterias could you get? Oh well, that may be the highlight of the flood, but what really matters are the people who are already starting to evacuate, there are already rescue boats, and we were lucky because we were living in a 3 storey house in which the ground floor is a garage (
but we don't have car so nothing to worry if it will be flooded and gets broken hehe). There are only few 3 storey houses in our community, flood was already up to the 2nd floor of the houses, so we volunteered to help those who needs place for evacuation. We welcomed a total of 7 families in our house, mind you, our house is not big and it's not yet even finished by that time because of the lack of funds- but even if the families looks like a sardines(they were all in our 3rd floor's living area), I still felt good thinking that we saved 7 families by that time. The most tragic part is, there was no electricity. And they didn't have foods with them so we gave them some of our canned goods. Haha, I remember I'm still with my 5-year ex-boyfriend that time, and he was so worried about us and he managed to bring me a "Tokyo-Tokyo" meal, my favorite, only to found out that our neighbourhood was not accessible anymore. There was no signal that time and the neighbors only told us that my boyfriend was at Caltex(gasoline station), 8 streets before our street, the part where the flood starts to fade, and he needed to give me something. So, my brother rode one of the rescue boats, and I was so lonely seeing him back in our house without my boyfriend. Ooops, I meanr ex boyfriend. But it was okay, it was still so thoughtful of him to bring me foods and my family was thankful too because we all shared and finished it. The evacuees was in our house until the next day, because the flood wasn't subsiding yet even up to the 2nd day. It was a a memorable moment for us indeed. And there are a lot of disastrous typhoons and floods in the Philippine History
(Read "10 Worst Typhoon that Went Down Philippines"). But the big question now is, what actually causes flood? And why we couldn't prevent it? Why are we experiencing it until today? Hey, do you know that not all of the countries in the world experience typhoons? Some countries rarely even experience rain. Are we lucky about it or not? Let's find out!
❤️ Now, I feel healthier, beautiful, and blooming! Swear! Anglakas pala maka-pangit ng yosi. 
😅 I though it was hard to stop. But what I've learned is that nothing is hard if you want to most especially if you need to. Wala ng unti-unti... Stop kung stop! 
😉
🙏🏼 Congratulations to the winners!
