THE RAVAGES OF THE LAST FLOOD IN BACOLOD OCTOBER 31, 2007

Thursday, November 15, 2007 Sunstar Bacolod
Ariola: Bing's flood
By Jose Paolo Ariola

I STILL WALK THE LINE

I must give this caveat to my readers at the onset for I am about to tread on perilous waters. The heathen that I am, I don't usually write about biblical matters because I believe I am not worthy. But with the way things are happening in this beloved city of ours in the past few weeks, a thought occurred to me that perhaps a message is being sent from up above for our city officials to ponder about in the light of the recent developments in the City of Smiles. Thus, at the risk of being misconstrued I will dare proceed.

We all know from the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, that whenever the Heavenly Father wants to chastise or knock some sense into the minds of man, He'd send some deluge or pestilence to straighten things out. Remember the Pharaoh Ramses and what God did to Egypt because of his adamant refusal to set the Israelites free? God unleashed locusts, frogs, turned the waters of the River Nile into blood, and for the coup de' grace, sent the Angel of Death to kill all the first born sons of Egypt. And then there was Sodom and Gomorrah and how God destroyed the two cities by means of fire. Of course, we all are fully cognizant of the story of Noah's Ark and the Flood. This story of the great inundation has been told and retold repeatedly through the centuries of our Christian existence. In fact lately, it has been given a more contemporary depiction in that zany movie entitled "Evan Almighty" where the main character, who before his transformation into a modern-day Noah, happened to be a politician (so much for similarities).

So what's biblical catastrophy got to do with the goings-on in Bacolod? Well, at first, I didn't really give it much of a thought. But as recent events unfolded lately, I somehow noticed some signs. For instance, at the height of the STL fiasco, did not the Bishop of Bacolod City himself, the Most Rev. Vicente Navarra, lead a phalanx of clerics and lay faithful to the City Council to plead not to allow STL to operate in the city. But what did the good Bishop get from City Hall? A stinging rebuke. No less than mayor himself smote Bishop Navarra as he chided the local Catholic Church not to proselytize against the immorality of gambling.

And then the rains fell. If we will recall last October 31, 2007 it rained like hell in Bacolod City incessantly from 6:00 o'clock p.m. up to about 10:00 o'clock p.m. literally flooding the main thoroughfares of the city from Bata to Tangub and elsewhere. Traffic stopped still leaving many a vehicle conked out in its wake and stranding many motorists.

Last Tuesday, it rained cats-and-dogs once again early in the morning wreaking havoc in the city's streets. Now the collective consciousness of well-minded Bacolenos has been struck by rapid rising floodwaters in the city. They've organized themselves into an alliance with a very appropriate, if not, pun-like acronym-Baha- to dramatize their displeasure against City Hall's inaction vis-a-vis the worsening flood problem of Bacolod.

Oh well, indeed the Lord works in mysterious ways. Some call it "gaba" (divine retribution). Others call it rather sarcastically as "mirisi" or "ti man" (as in "you-had-it-coming"). The pundits may have thought that, in the aftermath of the STL tussle, it was City Hall which got the upper hand. Almost, but not quite it seems. Guess every time there is a downpour from hereon, City Hall would do well to listen to the voices within the drizzling rain and heed the Cathedral's call before Heaven's wrath will reach biblical proportions. In the meantime, let's brace ourselves for more rains.