While most of us cursed Ondoy and Pepeng together with negligent and corrupt government officials and undisciplined kababayans who threw garbage everywhere without care, majority of us saw the light at the end of this tragedy. This only proved Filipinos resilience, the threshold for pain and suffering is great….But please let us not grow numb to it and accept poverty with open arms. Poverty should not be nurtured and cultured, neither profiteering.

So what did Ondoy taught Manila dwellers?

1. Love thy neighbors. This is a wake-up call to exclusive villagers who hide behind their firewalls and secured automatic gates and rely on their fleet of helpers for neighbor relations. I think most of us have realized the importance of knowing who lives and what grows at the other side of our fences. Next time you find yourself stuck alone on your rooftop, don’t despair as help would be on its way.

2. Love not the things of this world. Live simply. Buy only what is necessary. The moment your heart goes to your stuff, you will drown with them.

3. During floods, make sure to rescue your legal documents, photo albums and clothes first. Next is food and water. Bring your toothbrush. And don’t forget your shoes.

4. Have candles and flashlights ready. (By the way, I love these candle sconces.)

5. Lock your doors and windows to prevent garbage and looters from entering your house. Make sure that huge appliances are secured and tied in one place to prevent it from colliding with other furniture.

6. Don’t throw garbage anywhere.

7. Wear boots and use gloves when wading in floodwaters. Make sure that you bring a rope or plastic straw which you can tie to posts and use as support against the current. Wash immediately.

8. It is a lot safer eating canned sardines than buying pork/meat from the market. You wouldn’t know how that livestock died.

9. Charge your cellphone batteries. Your FM radios can also be a good source of news.

10. If you have a car and still have time to rescue it, drive it to the nearest building car park. Otherwise, let it drown before you do.

We all have stories to tell about Ondoy and Pepeng running havoc in our lives during the two darkest weeks in our history. Lives were claimed and properties were destroyed. I would say we’re fortunate enough to have saved our sanities and not lose one dear life to September’s deluge. But we all knew the other side of the story. Not everyone was that lucky.

No one in this village had thought of the remote possibility that one day we would someday swim our way to survival. Karangalan Village, like the rest, was submerged in flood water for three days taking with it almost all things that we all held dear. But material loss can be replaced, money can be earned and social security disability can be filed. The only valuable thing Typhoon Ondoy left with us, aside from piles of trash, is the lesson we learned from this tragedy – relationships matter and God is our ultimate source of hope.