Downgraded Crising still caused casualties

Last April 13, Maundy Thursday, I received devastating news that a dear friend of ours, Mr. Roberto “Bobby” Aboitiz whom I consider a great Cebuano passed on to eternal life. He was due for a liver transplant, but he got so weak that his body could not take it anymore. Bobby was a dear friend who steered the Aboitiz Group of Companies into a new direction from ship ferry operations into a huge ship building industry to running power plants all over the country and made Aboitiz a household name in the country.

When he retired, he steered the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI) to become Cebu’s top development oriented organization. With Bobby at the helm of RAFI, he envision the MEGA Cebu development program that promotes a long-term public and private collaborative planning for the Province of Cebu and its Metro Cities by addressing common concerns and finding solutions to age old problems. MEGA Cebu is where the political establishment sits down with the private sector in order to find solutions for the development of Cebu. MEGA Cebu has addressed issues like flooding and traffic in Cebu.

Yesterday, after a vigil at the Heritage Park in Taguig, Manila, the cremated remains of Bobby Aboitiz was brought to the Sacred Heart Church where many of his friends and associates paid their last respects to this great Cebuano, whom I am proud to say that we walked and rode our motorcycles together all over the country. May we request the pious reader to please pray for the repose of his soul. Bobby Aboitiz will be missed and never forgotten!

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Last week, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) warned us of a possible Tropical Depression code named “Crising” to affect us in the Visayas and Mindanao and to the frustration of many Holy Week vacationers, notably in Bantayan Island, Bohol and Surigao, by Black Saturday, the Philippine Coast Guard cancelled all vessels directly on the path of Crising.

Of course a lot of vacationers who wanted to go home last Saturday were stranded, as they could not return home from where they had their Holy Week vacation. What made it all the more frustrating was that most of Black Saturday was sunny weather and the people were cursing PAGASA for being too extra cautious. More so that PAGASA downgraded Crising into a low pressure area (LPA) when it made landfall by 5 p.m. Saturday.

But in the late evening of Black Saturday, April 15, the rains started to come and they became stronger and stronger with no let up all the way to Easter Sunday. Late Sunday afternoon, we already got reports that the rains that Crising brought affected areas in Northern Cebu, where flooding had hit the town of Carmen, 60 kilometers north of Cebu City. A total of 73 homes in Carmen were washed out and seven people were killed by the heavy floods and two people still missing.

Meanwhile in Cebu City, according to Cebu City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management chief Naigel Banacia, some 19 barangays experienced heavy flooding and 40 families were evacuated in Barangay Talamban while 20 families were evacuated in Kinasang-an, Pardo. I’m sure that the flood prone Colon St. and the areas surrounding SM City must have also been flooded. PAGASA may have been right in downgrading Crising into an LPA, but they should have checked whether a downgraded Crising was bringing in a huge amount of rains to Cebu. Apparently the people in Cebu felt that in downgrading Crising into an LPA, it became less of a threat to them, not realizing that Crising brought a tremendous amount of rains that flooded many parts of Cebu.

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Call it timely that the Social Weather Station (SWS) came up with their latest survey on the spirituality of the Filipino people where they found out that some eight out of every ten Filipinos believe that religion is important to them. So you can say that out of the eight Filipinos asked in that survey, some 85% of them must be Catholics. The rest come from other Christian sects or belong to the Muslim religion. This is indeed a very high number for a population of a hundred million Filipinos.

As they say, proof of the pudding is in the eating. I attended a three-day retreat at the Sacred Heart Center officiated by Fr. Roberto Rivera, SJ and the church was jam-packed with people. During the Visita Iglesia on Holy Thursday, the areas surrounding our churches were filled with people; you could hardly find any parking space. Yet the majority of the roads in Metro Cebu hardly had any traffic at all.

I’m sure that a lot of the Catholic faithful realizing that a tropical depression was coming, decided to cancel their out-of-town trips and had what is called a “staycation” in Cebu. It was indeed heartwarming to see that thousands of Cebuanos love their faith. SWS was right on the nail!

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