I'm not afraid
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard
I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company
You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
~”Stuck In A Moment” by U2
I’m a firm believer of the “keep moving forward” maxim so I never thought there will come a time I’d be able to totally and literally relate to this U2 track. Haha!
I actually started to write this post aboard a Victory Liner bus in EDSA. We’ve been on the same spot near the National Printing Office for more than an hour already and I was getting bored.
Haay, deciding to brave the heavy rains to go home to Pampanga was sooo not a good idea. Haha! I knew there was a typhoon and all but I share the rest of the country’s surprise and didn’t think the rain would be this bad.
At around 12:30pm
I didn’t even wait for the rain to subside and left our QC apartment at 12:30pm. By the time I reached the tricycle terminal of our neighborhood, my pants were already drenched up to the knee level. I had an umbrella, but the rain was just too strong. So I decided to take a taxi to the Victory Liner terminal in Cubao.
The chatty taxi driver turned on the AM radio and the reports were all about how some towns and neighborhoods all over Luzon are already deeply flooded. One of the officials on the radio even reminded the public to just stay at home (Sorry naman! Haha!).
The major and minor roads leading to Cubao all seemed flooded already so I told the driver to take me to TriNoma instead. I figured that provincial buses pass by there anyway so given how inconvenient it would be to have to drive all the way to Cubao, it would be more practical to do so, for me and for the taxi driver. We ended up somewhere along East Avenue and Agham Road. He turned left somewhere because there seemed to be heavy traffic ahead. And so we finally reached EDSA via the street beside the National Printing Office.
Vehicles along EDSA were on a standstill. And this is where I found the first bus I was in.
At around 1:30pm
The bus only had a few passengers and I thought the hassles of that trip home would end there. I was wrong of course.
When the bus barely moved and the smaller vehicles around were already turning back around, it started to get obvious that indeed, the storm Ondoy was like no other.
The thought of just going back to the apartment crossed my mind. But Argel (my housemate) told me electricity was out already so I decided to just be patient and stick with my decision to go home. I sure didn’t want to be stuck in a dark apartment without food and electricity. By this time, I was resigned to the fact that going home might take a few more hours than expected. Normally, going home from our QC apartment to our home in Pampanga took 2 hours tops. I never imagined that it would take 10x longer that day!
At around 4pm
Good thing that by this time, the rain was not as strong anymore and somehow, the flooding in the EDSA-Quezon Avenue junction somehow has subsided enough to make it passable to large vehicles.
Minutes later, we found ourselves near TriNoma (Landmark-MRT exit/entrance). By this time, I badly needed to pee already so I decided to get off the bus and relieve myself at a public CR in TriNoma. I thought of watching a movie first (at naisip ko pa daw manood ng sine, haha!) and try to go home again after because I figured it would take another hour or two for the flooding to subside some more. But then I saw another Victory Liner bus coming so I decided to ride in it already thinking that there won’t be any more trips later that evening.
At around 6pm
A reporter on an ABS-CBN news break unfortunately reported that the NLEX has been closed due to flooding in the Valenzuela and Balintawak area. Exasperated gasps were heard on the bus, haha! A few minutes after, some passengers got off the bus and decided to just go back to their city homes/apartments. I had to rethink my own situation. If I go back to our apartment in Diliman, I would have to wade through the waist-deep flood in Philcoa (as reported in the TV), not to mention that I’d probably have to walk all the way from EDSA to there. So I decided to stay, hoping that in a few hours, traffic will already move forward and that at least, I’m dry and safe inside the bus.
I didn’t realize it then, but now I do: I seemed to downplay the gravity of the situation. At first, I didn’t think the rains would be that bad. And even when it was obvious that it would worse than I expected, I didn’t still think that it would be as bad as it turned out to be. I guess each time the situation got worse, my line of thinking was “Okay so it’s worse than I expected. But hey, it probably won’t get any worse than this”. Too bad, the situation just kept getting worse each hour.
At around 8pm
The raging afternoon rain mellowed to an evening drizzle. For four hours, the bus was practically parked along EDSA near TriNoma. All the passengers in the bus killed time by watching the Ondoy onslaught coverage and Gerald Anderson’s Tiagong Akyat on ABS-CBN, and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Talentadong Pinoy on TV5.
It was around this time when traffic flow finally progressed, albeit only a bit. The bus moved from a spot near TriNoma to a spot near the new SM City North EDSA Annex. I thought that we could all finally go home, but alas, it really wasn’t meant to be just yet. By this time, my laptop has already been drained (I played Monopoly to kill time), and the battery charge of my phone is down to 1 bar (I played Tetris). So I just decided to try to catch some sleep because I finally resigned to the fact that it’s going to be a long night.
At around 10pm
The bus finally entered the North Luzon Expressway! Whew! The road was filled with muck and debris from the flash flood that rampaged the area earlier in the evening.
Again, I was fooled into thinking that it would be smooth sailing from now on, because after all, we were already in the NLEX. But all the stranded vehicles strewn in random spots along the way proved to be the worst problem of the night. By 12mn, we haven’t even reached the Toll Plaza of the southbound lane (which means we weren’t even into 10% of the way home)!
At around 6am
It was around this time when the problematic portions of the road were finally over. The bus picked up speed and it finally felt like we were in an expressway. The sun was already rising (although still covered by dangerous-looking clouds) and it was barely raining anymore. The visual extent of the damage wrought by Ondoy in the Central Luzon landscape was already apparent. What used to be lush emerald fields was now a seemingly endless and depressing sea of calamity.
At around 7am
We finally reached the San Fernando Exit of the NLEX. I planned to go to McDonald’s first for a quick breakfast (by this time, it has already been a good 21 hours since I last ate anything) but alas, the store at the Dolores intersection was closed. So I just went straight home.
I’ve never felt so relieved to reach home! Haha! I spent almost 20 hours on the road. The last time I was stranded that long on the road was back in 1991 during the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Our relatives from Porac who evacuated to our place in San Fernando had to go back to salvage more stuff. My sisters and I tagged along but we didn’t make it all the way back because the major bridge connecting Angeles City and Porac already collapsed due to the lahar flow caused by Mount Pinatubo. We were stranded on the way home because that afternoon was the peak of the eruption and we all know how much ash and rock Pinatubo spewed into the atmosphere.
People at home were just starting to wake up when I arrived. After cooking a quick corned beef breakfast, I finally laid in my bed to get some proper sleep. I was even supposed to go to Mass at 8:30am in our parish church and attend the ComLec meeting after (I was planning to join), but I guess when you’ve just spent 20 hours on a bus ride, plans change. Haha! Good thing though, NK (a friend from ComLec) texted me that the meeting was postponed anyway.

The black dots indicate my relative location during the indicated times.
The red line marks my general route.(Click the photo above for a bigger view)
So that’s my recap of my Ondoy ordeal over the weekend. To be honest, as inconvenient as my experience was, I didn’t feel like complaining. I mean, after all, I was just bored to death at worst. Compare that to what other people experienced, right? I am just thankful that in the end, I was alright.
Ondoy was indeed a wake-up call for all of us Filipinos in so many levels. Some warned that we should be generally prepared for these kinds of natural disasters. We’re no stranger to typhoons after all. Some suggested that the government should allot more budgets for these kinds of emergency. I’m sure that most government and non-government institutions are doing their best to help out in any way with their limited resources. Some say this should teach us to take care of our environment better. Imagine if the sewerage systems, rivers and creeks all over the metro weren’t polluted with garbage, I’m sure the magnitude of the effect of the flash flood wouldn’t be this bad. Some pointed at how Ondoy was the great social equalizer. After all, the rich and poor alike were equally helpless when stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Here’s hoping that this time, the government and we, as a people, would all finally learn our lesson. How many times have we experienced disasters of similar scale although in different forms? And yet we still seem to be clueless for long term solutions.
Looking on the bright side, isn’t it amazing how resilient as a people we are? I mean no disrespect for those who perished in this tragedy and those whose houses and livelihood were immensely damaged. But we have to take note of how these kinds of tragedies still managed to bring out the best in all of us. The way we rallied help for those in need in various and modern forms is truly a ray of hope and something to be proud of, eh?
Now for those who took advantage of these situation to forward their personal and political ambitions, now that’s for another post! Haha!
Of anything in this world
There's nothing you can throw at me
That I haven't already heard
I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company
You've got to get yourself together
You've got stuck in a moment
And now you can't get out of it
Don't say that later will be better
Now you're stuck in a moment
And you can't get out of it
~”Stuck In A Moment” by U2
I’m a firm believer of the “keep moving forward” maxim so I never thought there will come a time I’d be able to totally and literally relate to this U2 track. Haha!
I actually started to write this post aboard a Victory Liner bus in EDSA. We’ve been on the same spot near the National Printing Office for more than an hour already and I was getting bored.
Haay, deciding to brave the heavy rains to go home to Pampanga was sooo not a good idea. Haha! I knew there was a typhoon and all but I share the rest of the country’s surprise and didn’t think the rain would be this bad.
At around 12:30pm
I didn’t even wait for the rain to subside and left our QC apartment at 12:30pm. By the time I reached the tricycle terminal of our neighborhood, my pants were already drenched up to the knee level. I had an umbrella, but the rain was just too strong. So I decided to take a taxi to the Victory Liner terminal in Cubao.
The chatty taxi driver turned on the AM radio and the reports were all about how some towns and neighborhoods all over Luzon are already deeply flooded. One of the officials on the radio even reminded the public to just stay at home (Sorry naman! Haha!).
The major and minor roads leading to Cubao all seemed flooded already so I told the driver to take me to TriNoma instead. I figured that provincial buses pass by there anyway so given how inconvenient it would be to have to drive all the way to Cubao, it would be more practical to do so, for me and for the taxi driver. We ended up somewhere along East Avenue and Agham Road. He turned left somewhere because there seemed to be heavy traffic ahead. And so we finally reached EDSA via the street beside the National Printing Office.
Vehicles along EDSA were on a standstill. And this is where I found the first bus I was in.
At around 1:30pm
The bus only had a few passengers and I thought the hassles of that trip home would end there. I was wrong of course.
When the bus barely moved and the smaller vehicles around were already turning back around, it started to get obvious that indeed, the storm Ondoy was like no other.
The thought of just going back to the apartment crossed my mind. But Argel (my housemate) told me electricity was out already so I decided to just be patient and stick with my decision to go home. I sure didn’t want to be stuck in a dark apartment without food and electricity. By this time, I was resigned to the fact that going home might take a few more hours than expected. Normally, going home from our QC apartment to our home in Pampanga took 2 hours tops. I never imagined that it would take 10x longer that day!

Good thing that by this time, the rain was not as strong anymore and somehow, the flooding in the EDSA-Quezon Avenue junction somehow has subsided enough to make it passable to large vehicles.
Minutes later, we found ourselves near TriNoma (Landmark-MRT exit/entrance). By this time, I badly needed to pee already so I decided to get off the bus and relieve myself at a public CR in TriNoma. I thought of watching a movie first (at naisip ko pa daw manood ng sine, haha!) and try to go home again after because I figured it would take another hour or two for the flooding to subside some more. But then I saw another Victory Liner bus coming so I decided to ride in it already thinking that there won’t be any more trips later that evening.
At around 6pm
A reporter on an ABS-CBN news break unfortunately reported that the NLEX has been closed due to flooding in the Valenzuela and Balintawak area. Exasperated gasps were heard on the bus, haha! A few minutes after, some passengers got off the bus and decided to just go back to their city homes/apartments. I had to rethink my own situation. If I go back to our apartment in Diliman, I would have to wade through the waist-deep flood in Philcoa (as reported in the TV), not to mention that I’d probably have to walk all the way from EDSA to there. So I decided to stay, hoping that in a few hours, traffic will already move forward and that at least, I’m dry and safe inside the bus.
I didn’t realize it then, but now I do: I seemed to downplay the gravity of the situation. At first, I didn’t think the rains would be that bad. And even when it was obvious that it would worse than I expected, I didn’t still think that it would be as bad as it turned out to be. I guess each time the situation got worse, my line of thinking was “Okay so it’s worse than I expected. But hey, it probably won’t get any worse than this”. Too bad, the situation just kept getting worse each hour.
At around 8pm
The raging afternoon rain mellowed to an evening drizzle. For four hours, the bus was practically parked along EDSA near TriNoma. All the passengers in the bus killed time by watching the Ondoy onslaught coverage and Gerald Anderson’s Tiagong Akyat on ABS-CBN, and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Talentadong Pinoy on TV5.
It was around this time when traffic flow finally progressed, albeit only a bit. The bus moved from a spot near TriNoma to a spot near the new SM City North EDSA Annex. I thought that we could all finally go home, but alas, it really wasn’t meant to be just yet. By this time, my laptop has already been drained (I played Monopoly to kill time), and the battery charge of my phone is down to 1 bar (I played Tetris). So I just decided to try to catch some sleep because I finally resigned to the fact that it’s going to be a long night.
At around 10pm
The bus finally entered the North Luzon Expressway! Whew! The road was filled with muck and debris from the flash flood that rampaged the area earlier in the evening.
Again, I was fooled into thinking that it would be smooth sailing from now on, because after all, we were already in the NLEX. But all the stranded vehicles strewn in random spots along the way proved to be the worst problem of the night. By 12mn, we haven’t even reached the Toll Plaza of the southbound lane (which means we weren’t even into 10% of the way home)!
At around 6am
It was around this time when the problematic portions of the road were finally over. The bus picked up speed and it finally felt like we were in an expressway. The sun was already rising (although still covered by dangerous-looking clouds) and it was barely raining anymore. The visual extent of the damage wrought by Ondoy in the Central Luzon landscape was already apparent. What used to be lush emerald fields was now a seemingly endless and depressing sea of calamity.
At around 7am
We finally reached the San Fernando Exit of the NLEX. I planned to go to McDonald’s first for a quick breakfast (by this time, it has already been a good 21 hours since I last ate anything) but alas, the store at the Dolores intersection was closed. So I just went straight home.
I’ve never felt so relieved to reach home! Haha! I spent almost 20 hours on the road. The last time I was stranded that long on the road was back in 1991 during the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Our relatives from Porac who evacuated to our place in San Fernando had to go back to salvage more stuff. My sisters and I tagged along but we didn’t make it all the way back because the major bridge connecting Angeles City and Porac already collapsed due to the lahar flow caused by Mount Pinatubo. We were stranded on the way home because that afternoon was the peak of the eruption and we all know how much ash and rock Pinatubo spewed into the atmosphere.
People at home were just starting to wake up when I arrived. After cooking a quick corned beef breakfast, I finally laid in my bed to get some proper sleep. I was even supposed to go to Mass at 8:30am in our parish church and attend the ComLec meeting after (I was planning to join), but I guess when you’ve just spent 20 hours on a bus ride, plans change. Haha! Good thing though, NK (a friend from ComLec) texted me that the meeting was postponed anyway.

The black dots indicate my relative location during the indicated times.
The red line marks my general route.(Click the photo above for a bigger view)
So that’s my recap of my Ondoy ordeal over the weekend. To be honest, as inconvenient as my experience was, I didn’t feel like complaining. I mean, after all, I was just bored to death at worst. Compare that to what other people experienced, right? I am just thankful that in the end, I was alright.
Ondoy was indeed a wake-up call for all of us Filipinos in so many levels. Some warned that we should be generally prepared for these kinds of natural disasters. We’re no stranger to typhoons after all. Some suggested that the government should allot more budgets for these kinds of emergency. I’m sure that most government and non-government institutions are doing their best to help out in any way with their limited resources. Some say this should teach us to take care of our environment better. Imagine if the sewerage systems, rivers and creeks all over the metro weren’t polluted with garbage, I’m sure the magnitude of the effect of the flash flood wouldn’t be this bad. Some pointed at how Ondoy was the great social equalizer. After all, the rich and poor alike were equally helpless when stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Here’s hoping that this time, the government and we, as a people, would all finally learn our lesson. How many times have we experienced disasters of similar scale although in different forms? And yet we still seem to be clueless for long term solutions.
Looking on the bright side, isn’t it amazing how resilient as a people we are? I mean no disrespect for those who perished in this tragedy and those whose houses and livelihood were immensely damaged. But we have to take note of how these kinds of tragedies still managed to bring out the best in all of us. The way we rallied help for those in need in various and modern forms is truly a ray of hope and something to be proud of, eh?
Now for those who took advantage of these situation to forward their personal and political ambitions, now that’s for another post! Haha!
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