19 November 2016, 8:30 pm.
Once I found myself downtown, the sudden downpour earlier in the evening finally proved it wasn’t so bad after all. The world was extremely wet, but that was all.
When my tricycle passed by the Rizal Boulevard on the way home to Tubod, I could see that the Saturday night people were already marking territory in Allegre and the earnest trio of belters at Coco Amigos were going about their little streetside stage in their usual musical dervish, owning a spirited rendition of Madonna’s La Isla Bonita.
Farther on turning left at the corner of Aldecoa Drive, I could see that the axis of Tubod–a regular impassable caldera of rain water–was devoid of the usual flooding, so the rain must have been light in this side of town.
It wasn’t so when I was at the mall, where I had decided earlier to get a quick dinner in my attempt to avoid my usual routine for a weekend day. I was already drinking cappuccino at The Bean when the rains came–a short temperamental torrent that bewildered the people at the mall for its unexpected ferocity.
By one mall entrance, I could see a man having a heart attack, and an usyoso crowd had quickly gathered around to commiserate with the man’s frantic daughter, all of them waiting for an ambulance that was yet to come. It must have gotten stuck in the traffic just outside the mall. The stretch was a furious mix of honking automobiles, and masses of people suddenly and inexplicably pouring from everywhere, and of course the surprise of the gorging flood.
In that part of Calindagan, there was no road at all; there was a river in its place, a stream of cruddy brown water in a race towards the Ceres terminal, which had by then become a very deep lake. I was lucky I had flagged down an empty tricycle just in time, which rescued me from the surging waters.
Later, for a moment, while stuck in that tricycle as we waited for the traffic to clear a little, the world to me looked like it was having a little apocalypse–but even so, the voices from the nearby cockpit were loud and throaty with their sabong bets, never mind the rain.
I decided quickly that the world might soon end, but cockfighting was forever.
24 November 2016, 2:30 pm.
They’ve canceled all Cebu-bound ferries today.
The makeshift plastic billboard outside the Cokaliong ticketing office at the Boulevard declares so in not too many words: “NO TRIP”–all capital letters scrawled on a piece of paper inserted into a groove of the small billboard.
And just to emphasize the sincerity of such terse pronouncement, the ticketing windows are closed, too, effectively telling you there is no one to talk to, to bargain with, to inquire things from. Questions like, “Will you resume operations tomorrow?” Or, “What do I do if I’ve already bought a ticket?” Or, “Does love exist, and if so, can the rain cure it?” There is no one around. Beside Cokaliong, the George & Peter Lines ticketing office, equally shabby-looking, was shuttered as well. And so it goes.
There was definitely no getting off this island for now. A tropical depression was fast approaching from the east, and the projections of its rainy path predict a swathing through the heart of Central Visayas, eventually going towards Palawan. The storm lands squarely upon Dumaguete on the 25th, and right on the nose of the city’s fiesta.
Already, the skies above the sea off the Boulevard are prophet to the impending cold front: everything in the horizon, including a sketch of Siquijor in the distance, are in various shades of sombre blue-green–dark turquoise, dark cyan, teal.
You couldn’t tell though from the quiet waves washing ashore. Nor from the weight of humidity still hanging in the air.
And in the next block, down Silliman Avenue to the crossing of Hibbard Avenue, downtown has become a beehive of a parade about to begin. The people are milling about, filling out the sidewalks in anticipation of the start of the annual fiesta parade. The school bands are practice-playing their marching music. The young majorettes and minorettes–little girls in skimpy twirler costumes and boots–are looking lost in their makeup and tight buns, while they’re ushered about the crowded streets by their frantic mothers, looking for the right assembly point to meet the others.
No one at all takes heed of the coming rain.
The fiesta is upon us–and in the name of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who does not exist, let the revelry begin.
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Author’s email: ian.casocot@gmail.com
