None before had there been worse deluge

About a decade or so now, the abnormal forces of nature have become more violent and unpredictable. Such grim events are scientifically attributed to the climate change or global warming phenomenon.

But lessons learned from long departed village old folk, especially their recognized wiser oral folklore forebears, and also from cursory readings of relevant biblical accounts, the recent upheavals of Mother Nature are ominous signs of doom.

They prophesy that with the obvious primacy of sins or evil over good, their final battle of attrition - the Armageddon - is nigh come again to cleanse mankind. As in Noah's time, only few could hitch on the ark to survive the Flood - together with each species of animals like in the old prophecy - to resume a cleansed life after drying up atop another Mount Ararat.

Whether fact or fiction, or just superstitious blarney or with biblical spirituality, is of no moment. What now appear as undeniable present and clear omens are the frequency and worsening force majeure beyond man's taming capabilities, including accurate prediction.

While Pagasa had traced Ondoy's inception in the Pacific and its path towards the Philippines with its heavy rains as it hit landfall, Pagasa could not forewarn the Luzon targets that the rains would pour that heavy. Like a loose decanter, Typhoon Ondoy dumped 13.4 inches of rain in 6 hours, almost equal to the 15.4 average for whole September.

So it came to pass that most victims of Typhoon Ondoy were taken unawares, that Ondoy seemed most vengeful to the National Capital Region (NCR) and several provinces in catastrophic rains beyond expectations.

In fact, tropical storm Ondoy brought the heaviest rainfall in 40-year history that exacted 277 casualties so far counting, 42 missing, and about half a million losing homes. Street/road and bridge damage, and ruined homes are so widespread and still indeterminable to toll in billions. The whole NCR and 27 Luzon provinces and cities had been 80% submerged up to rooftop levels of one storey structures, as sampled by Cainta, Pasig, Marikina, and Manila that were almost 100% inundated.

Chilling and lurid scenes of death were sadly depicted in tv shots, the saddest was of helpless victims atop floating debris of the rushing swollen river and, whose pathetic flailing arms for help got swallowed beneath the bridge. And other countless survivors wading through what used to be the streets and roadways up to their necks. Those finding precarious safety on rooftops, or higher floors of taller structures, had to await any possible rescue that didn't come. In the midst of murky waters, squalor and mud, mountainous debris of all sorts, and in pain, hunger and psycho stress, the wet survivors acted like robots or zombies.

Never before has a natural debacle hit Luzon - the Visayas and Mindanao have to thank the Lord for having been spared - in so short time span and in such stupendous deathly scenes that leave the nation stunned silly. In tv grabs that featured such lurid graphic details, they remain traumatic episodes of Mother Nature's wrath.

Until now, doomsday thoughts have been in the minds of victims and observers, that is, that Armageddon, or the Apocalypse, or whatever be its equivalent in superstition or in religion, could be imminently and inexorably at hand.

Never before has such worst deluge ever visited upon the almost inured inhabitants who are used to 20 typhoons pummeling them every year. While the long resilient and suffering victims of the calamities who may have learned to resign their fate to their faith in God, none, as in no one, among Filipinos had ever anticipated such gruesome deluge in a span of 6 hours or so.

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