Camanava residents move merchandise to second shelf as Marikina deploys twenty boats onto dry land
QUEZON CITY — With the La Mesa Dam hovering 62 centimeters below its spilling level, officials of the newly established Bureau of Meniscus Affairs confirmed Saturday that the reservoir is being monitored by the most powerful instrument in the archipelago: seventeen men standing at the rim, looking at the water, and saying “malapit na.”
The dam stood at 79.53 meters against a spilling level of 80.15 as the habagat, enhanced by Typhoon Dolphin loitering 825 kilometers offshore like a man revving a motorcycle outside your window, dumped continuous rain across Luzon, according to Manila Bulletin’s reporting on the official monitoring effort.
The Science of Malapit Na
Bureau chief hydrologist Engr. Restituto Mabanag III explained the agency’s methodology at a press briefing held under a tarpaulin that was itself nearing spilling level. “We have three alert stages,” Mabanag said. “Stage one is ‘wala pa.’ Stage two is ‘malapit na.’ Stage three is ‘ayan na,’ at which point the water is already in Malabon and the briefing is moot. We are currently at malapit na, which we have been at since roughly 2004.”
Mabanag confirmed that if the dam spills, water flows to the Tullahan River and onward to the Camanava area, whose residents have responded to the warning with the practiced calm of people who have owned an inflatable salbabida longer than they have owned a couch. In Malabon, sari-sari store owner Aling Nena Concepcion, 61, has already moved her merchandise to the second shelf, a maneuver she executes with the muscle memory of a Navy drill team. “The government says be vigilant,” she said, handing a customer a load card over ankle-deep water that both of them had agreed not to mention. “I have been vigilant since Marcos Senior. The flood and I are not enemies. We are magkapitbahay. It visits, I complain, it leaves, it takes a tsinelas as a souvenir. There is a system.”
Twenty Boats, Ten Locations, One Prophecy
Across the river, the Marikina city government pre-deployed twenty rescue boats, prepositioned food packs, activated central kitchens, and suspended classes for Sunday, a level of readiness covered in the Bulletin and described by disaster experts as “the single most organized act of pessimism in Southeast Asia.”
Marikina’s river level stood at a serene 14.4 meters, entirely normal, with no flooding anywhere, which officials stressed is exactly when you deploy twenty boats. “Amateurs wait for water,” said city disaster officer Bong Salvatierra. “Marikina does not wait. Our boats are in position. Our kitchens are hot. Our students are informed there is no class, which they absorbed with tremendous grief, lighting candles of thanksgiving. If the flood comes, we are ready. If it does not come, we have twenty boats parked on dry land, and the barangay captains will pose with them anyway, because a boat photo is a boat photo.”
The class suspension itself triggered the traditional metro-wide ritual in which every other city’s students refresh their mayor’s Facebook page hourly, leaving comments of escalating theological desperation. By 9 p.m., the comment “Sana all Marikina” had been posted 41,000 times, making it briefly the most unified political position in the National Capital Region.
PAGASA Maintains Its Streak
PAGASA, meanwhile, confirmed it is monitoring three weather systems outside the Philippine Area of Responsibility, including two that will not enter, will not affect the country, and exist purely, in the words of one forecaster, “for awareness.” The agency’s practice of announcing storms that will not arrive has been praised by communication scholars as the meteorological equivalent of a tita telling you about a boy she does not want you to marry.
“Typhoon Dolphin will not make landfall,” explained forecaster Divina Rosales-Lim. “But Dolphin is enhancing the habagat. The habagat is the one raining on you. So the storm you can see is innocent, and the rain is being done by air you cannot see, on behalf of a typhoon that is leaving. We find that once the public accepts this, they are ready for Philippine politics.”
The satirical desk at Bohiney Magazine has proposed that PAGASA simply issue one permanent advisory each June reading “yes” and renew it in November, while the London-based observers at The London Prat expressed awe that a nation could operate twenty rescue boats with total competence while its politicians remain unable to operate one flood control budget, noting Britain has the reverse problem, “a spotless budget and one boat, which is ceremonial.”
The Water Decides
As of press time, La Mesa remained at malapit na, Angat Dam continued rising at 159.37 meters, and Ambuklao and Binga in Benguet had opened four gates each, releasing water with the quiet confidence of institutions that answer to no one. The seventeen men at the La Mesa rim remained at their posts, watching, measuring, and occasionally saying “ayan, tumaas na naman,” which was entered into the official log.
Aling Nena, asked whether she feared the spill, shook her head and restocked the top shelf. “The dam is like my husband,” she said. “Everyone keeps saying he is about to do something. I will believe it when I am wet.”
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com