From Ondoy to Pepeng

It was just last week when Ondoy hit the Philippines, the havoc that Ondoy caused is still visible on the streets of Quezon City - trash from people's homes are still on the sidewalks and the water markings still on the street walls.

I was enjoying my vacation in Palawan when Ondoy struck Metro Manila and the Calabarzon area leaving a lot of people homeless and in a state of disbelief. Even if we lost everything I still feel lucky - nothing bad happened to my family, my friends and my loved ones. What exactly happened during that day? While I was out enjoying the beautiful Coron islands - the whole of Metro Manila was filling up with water. Flights were cancelled that day and upon getting back to the Coron town proper we heard from tourists that Manila was declared to be in the state of Calamity. My heart started pounding and my stomach turned upside down as I watch the live newsfeed from ABS-CBN flash from the TV screen. I was worried sick of my family. I tried contacting everybody but to no avail, eventually I got an answer from my mom - she said that Gio and Dane were missing, the last contact she had with them was fromm 2pm - that was about 6 hours ago! I started praying for their safety. I did not get a good night sleep then - it wasn't until 10am the following day that I heard news from my brother and sister they were stranded along Espana with no food and no signal on their mobile phones. They were back on our apartment that same day, they told me that the house was in total chaos and that most of our stuff were either wet or broken. I was very anxious to get back to my family but the cloudy skies did not allow any aircrafts to land on Busuanga Airport resulting to another day of vacation for me.

September 28- Finally! I'm back in Manila, while we were landing we saw the flood infested areas - it was one of the most devasting sights of my life, I can only imagine the suffering that Ondoy inflicted to the Filipino people. The good thing that came out of going through Typhoon Ondoy is that it showed that every person has a heart and at times like this we help eaach other as much as we can.

Now after a week of struggling here comes another typhoon - Pepeng. Sad to say, this typhoon is stronger than Ondoy, let's cross our fingers and continue to say our prayers. God Bless us all..