Real life horrors

The blood moon is out and so is everyone’s inner darkness.

There are zombies and bloodied corpses all around us. Mummies and skeletons, and headless monsters, too. Annabelle, the wide-eyed devil doll comes alive. Gypsies and money scammers are everywhere. Look closer and you’ll see ogres and ghosts, too and then there’s also the ever present white lady.

Anything can happen. It is after all Halloween night in Manila.

Even a street kid who knocked on my car window for the usual trick-or-treat was all made-up -- “blood” was drooping from her mouth and her eyes were covered with giant black circles. The sight of her face – catatonic and expressionless – jolted me, at least for a second until I realized it was Halloween.

Indeed, Halloween in Manila was as wild as can be. In Poblacion in Makati, the zombies came out of hiding. Elsewhere, the undead, the demons and hell’s angels walked on earth once again. Manila’s night scene partied ‘til the morning with the habitués in their most vivid portrayals of their favorite horror villains.

This was relatively new to me, or maybe I had forgotten how it used to be. The past few years, I was always out of the country around this time to try to escape the memory of grief.

But I had neither the means, nor the time to run away this year, so I stayed put.

And wow, I was quite shocked to see how far Filipinos have gone when it comes to assimilating Halloween.

As it is with Valentine’s Day, we shamelessly gave in to consumerism because it’s fun and crazy, and especially because in this age of Instagram, it would look so darn cute on our timelines.

Of course, it’s not a sin to party. What’s one night, if only to keep us sane from everything that’s happening around us right? I, too, would gladly give in, if I could.

But while we fill our minds with everything spectral, let us also be aware of the growing number of real life horrors happening around us.

Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and real life is more frightening than Halloween night.

Earthquakes

The spate of earthquakes that struck southern Philippines the past days, for instance, is scary.

As I write this, 14 people are dead and hundreds have been displaced, according to country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

More than 12,000 are in evacuation centers, and over 2,000 houses have been totally or partly damaged, NDRRMC also said.

I am sure it’s not over and that’s not the only scary part. I can’t help but wonder how safe Metro Manila is now especially with all these towering condominiums and sprawling malls built on just about every square meter that these giant developers can get their hands on to?

Are these buildings strong enough to withstand an 8.2 magnitude earthquake? How about the infrastructure projects? The DPWH and city engineers should be working double time to check these big-ticket items.

More importantly, the private sector proponents of the projects themselves should be responsible for the safety of their respective developments.

Wouldn’t it be quite a horror story if our bridges and roads, or the residential buildings where we live in suddenly collapse? Now, that would be worst than the apocalypse.

Water shortage

Another real life horror is the water crisis. This is very real and it’s waiting to implode. Call me alarmist, but really, wouldn’t it be frightening to wake up one day and realize we don’t have water anymore, not in our dams or in our cisterns?

Last summer, we just had the worst water crisis to hit the country in a decade. Now, just a few months after, we’re facing another water shortage.

We obviously need new water sources. But we also need better urban planning to manage the growing density in Metro Manila. It goes back to basic governance.

Health crisis

On the more vital health crisis, I don’t really know where to start. Should I tell you how emergency rooms nowadays can no longer keep up with the throngs of sick children flooding their beds? Or should I start with the more scary reality of growing resistance to medicines because existing diseases are evolving and that even Big Pharma and doctors can’t seem to cope?

Culture of impunity

The blatant culture of impunity in the country is equally alarming. There are recent reports of simultaneous raids in offices of activists organizations in Manila and Negros last Oct. 31. Fifty-nine individuals, including minors, were arrested. As with the bloody drug war, these arrests are a total mockery of our laws. And again, it’s quite alarming.

No need for ghost stories

You see we can party all we want with the scariest costumes or tell ourselves the spookiest ghost stories we can imagine, but the truth is, real life horrors are already all around us.

Iris Gonzales’ email address is [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at eyesgonzales.com