Milli Vanilli says Blame it on the rain
As of the moment, typhoon Basyang (international name Conson) had already left the country after “storming” into Luzon. And as expected, it brought devastation from some of the areas that it has passed over. The second typhoon to hit the country and certainly an addition to the list of disasters experienced this year, the typhoon was again another reminder for us about the cruelty of nature if we disregard the signs our only planet has been giving us, after years of exploiting and abusing its resources.
The aftermath of typhoon Basyang left us blaming – again for the hundredth time – our weather bureau for what we have perceived as their mistake in predicting the weather accurately. The funny thing is, we all know how hard it is to predict weather correctly, and yet we cannot forget the mistakes made by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) – our one and only weather bureau. Worst of all, we don’t listen to weather precautions or reminders given to us whenever each of these typhoons approaches. Look at Ondoy last year, we treated it as a regular occurrence and yet it left us frail and suffering from its wrath up to this day. Basyang tells us to take her seriously, but we just don’t care.
And after the rain (and the strong winds for this matter), we put our blame and pointed our finger quickly at our old, reliable but hateful weather bureau. It came even to the point that the newly-proclaimed president became upset at the inability of PAGASA to give accurate predictions. The outburst would have been justified if only the weather bureau has overflowing budget at their disposal and state of the art equipments. I am not even sure if they have upgraded the operating system that they use to relay and store data into a user-friendly interface.
As I see it, we don’t really need to blame the weather bureau that has been using equipments older than the date of birth indicated in our birth certificate. We had a president who spent nine years building roads and infrastructures but neglected to maintain and upgrade equipments who’s just a little bit younger than most PAGASA employees. And this is what they call the road(s) to progress - the vision blurred by the heavy downpour of corrupt practices prevalent in most of their government transactions. They’d rather build roads and bridges to nowhere than upgrading one necessary and fully functioning agency that informs and alerts the citizens from any possible catastrophe, whether natural or man-made.
It is always easy to blame PAGASA. We blame them for the heavy rains when we expect the sun to shine brightly on us. We blame them for the floods but we throw our garbage in the streets. We blame them for the landslide but we are the ones cutting down trees from the mountains. We blame them whenever we get surprised at the sudden change of direction that our typhoons had made while ravaging our country. We blame them when we suspend classes for students on a sunny day. We blame PAGASA for ignoring their warning to us to prepare for the worst even with their limited resources.
Basyang and other upcoming storms are not just reminding us to brace ourselves for Mother Nature’s wrath. The devastation also wants to remind us to be on alert, for ourselves at most. We don’t have to rely so much on a weather bureau that is undermanned and left to age - from its equipment down to its personnel. All we have to do is to rely on ourselves to survive such disasters, and with the hope that the wind will blow the bad weather away… from us.
*ang laki ng inarte mode*
blame it on a very sunshiny day. hehe!
thanks for pointing out that we are all responsible for whatever is happening in our nation. still, my prayer, God bless the Philippines and may we be delivered from always making sisi to others.
*still on my pag-iinarte mode*
hay naku grabe pala nangyari dyan sa Manila at Central kuya. Awa ng dyos sa Northern Luzon wala masyado. At actually maaraw pa dito sa amin while cb nga nila Signal number 1. Buti at wala masyado affected dyan sa inyo?..
Ingat ingat lang ha.. marami pa dadating daw!