From Super El Niño to Super Typhoon

Now, I’m confused. They told us to prepare for Super El Niño; then, they told us to prepare for a super typhoon. I was getting ready to wear tank tops and fill up big buckets of water. Now, I have to shift gears and brace myself for heavy rainfall, with my jacket and raincoat ready. I think I’m going down with a migraine. I feel like a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the opposite.

While I’m writing this, the afternoon skies are dark and cloudy. The rains have not yet started. I don’t know what will have happened by the time you read this. Champy, which would take on the name Rosal, may have gone straight through Bicol, ravaging the region, or veered northward, sparing us from its direct path. Either way, it has awakened our anxieties about the many perilous possibilities.

I have to move important documents and electronic equipment to higher places to prevent them from getting soaked. Let me check if we have enough food and water to last a few days. I hope our roof and windows are secure and that the power and Internet connection don’t get cut off. I have proposals and plans to finish. All of a sudden, we remember that Mike Padua is Mr. Typhoon, and we would love to hear what he has to say every few hours.

When this super typhoon has passed, we’ll go back to worrying about Super El Niño.

Despite the expected intensification of El Niño, the Philippines should not assume it will be spared from powerful typhoons. PAGASA has warned that tropical cyclones can still develop and intensify during El Niño. These warnings underscore the need to prepare for powerful storms even when drought and below-normal rainfall are expected.

So, what’s this? Is nature slashing us with a double-edged sword, striking us with one edge and then turning around to strike us with the other? We face the risks of heat exhaustion and dehydration, only to confront leptospirosis and dengue fever when the rains arrive, before returning to intense heat once again.

Our crops and fields struggle through drought, only to suffer flood damage, followed by another round of drying soil and cracking earth. Water reservoirs go from low and depleted to overflowing, only to start shrinking again. Typhoons could even arrive one after another. These successive weather extremes could leave us little time to recover before the next challenge.

Repeated expansion and contraction, combined with constant wetting and drying, can cause materials to crack, corrode, warp, split, and decay. It’s as if nature has decided to drive erratically, making sharp turns from left to right and back again, while we sit in the back seat, violently bouncing around with every turn.

Then, we’ll just have to reinforce ourselves to survive these wavering weather patterns. Maybe that’s just the way it is. We wear thin shirts when the heat becomes unbearable, then put on jackets when storms strike, hoping we don’t succumb to any disease in the process.

Another thing that confuses me is the withdrawal of three articles of impeachment. What happened there? The proceedings heated up like Super El Niño. The alleged misuse of confidential funds brought names such as Mary Grace Piattos, Jovee Marie N. de la Cruz, and other allegedly fictitious names or aliases into the spotlight. Alleged bribery fizzled out before evidence on that charge could be presented. Then came the alleged grave threats involving an alleged assassination threat. After all that, the proceedings suddenly veered in another direction, leaving only the article concerning alleged unexplained wealth.

That remaining article could itself be a super typhoon in its own right. I know I’ve already asked this question, but I’ll ask it again: What happened there? They said the remaining unexplained-wealth charge was considered sufficient to warrant Duterte’s removal from office. Don’t the police usually build cases by gathering multiple charges, even minor ones, to strengthen the prosecution’s case? Forgive my legally moronic brain for struggling to grasp the point of this.

Isn’t putting so much weight on just one article too risky? What if some senator-judges decide that the remaining charge is insufficient to justify impeachment? Then there would be no other articles left to fall back on. Wouldn’t retaining the other charges have given the Senate additional grounds to consider? Or is there a legal strategy behind this decision that I simply don’t understand?

Oh, well. I guess I’ll leave that to those who understand the legal process better than I do.

Now, what’s the latest weather report?

- 2 Corinthians 4:8: “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair.”