Winter in the Philippines

MANILA, Philippines - As we rise from the collective food coma we slipped into during the holidays, it has become a tradition to start any conversation by commenting on the weather. Remarkably uncontroversial, it’s an excellent topic for small talk, since any observation about how noticeably cooler it is during the lazy days between Christmas and Valentine’s Day will be greeted with sympathetic nods and perhaps an anecdote about how extra burdensome it is to get up in the morning.

Thanks to the northeast monsoon, blowing south from Siberia, Metro Manila is less sticky and muggy this time of the year. Baguio City, which experiences the chilliest temperature in the country, warrants attention as the forecast drops to the single digits. News headlines pertaining to the weather are the same as they were in the past: Expect things to stay pleasant until February.

While the respite from the usual heat is welcome, I couldn’t help but place matters in a wider context. In the Canadian city of Calgary, where I spent some time as a student, my friends and I broke out our board shorts in celebration when it hit 1º Celsius, having endured below-freezing conditions at times -15º C, excluding wind chill days or weeks before. (I learned never to step out of the house without first consulting Weather.com.) Since then, this extreme temperature is what I’ve come to associate with the word cold. The 19.2º C we recorded in Metro Manila recently would constitute a near-heatwave in Calgary, where 20°C is the average high in June.

Weather in the 1900s

A survey of books written by foreigners staying in the archipelago during the early 20th century yields fascinating insights on acclimatization. In An Observer in the Philippines or Life in Our New Possessions — published in 1905 — John Bancroft Devins, editor of The New York Observer, said: It was a bit trying when the mercury was hovering between 80º and 90º (Fahrenheit; around 27-32º C) to be told by the old resident of five years standing: You are fortunate not to be here during the hot weather.

Mrs. Campbell Dauncey, in the following year’s An Englishwoman in the Philippines, remarked: I think the average Fahrenheit now is 83º, but as life here is adapted to such temperature, you must not think that means anything like what 83º would be in EnglandÂ… and if this is what they call winter, I am only thankful that I have not plunged at once into summer.    

On “the trying character of the Philippine climate,” Arthur J. Brown says in The New Era in the Philippines: “But the traveller who chooses for his visit what is euphemistically called ‘winter’ will be apt to perspiringly conjecture with Mark Twain in India that the term ‘winter’ is used merely for convenience, to distinguish between weather that will melt a brass door knob and weather that will make it only mushy.”

Fickle mother nature

It seems that when talk comes to fickle Mother Nature, it’s typical to hear a variation of a popular Mark Twain quote. “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes,” said the American author and humorist, born Samuel Langhorne Clemens, in 1876. “Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it” is also frequently attributed to Twain, but was in fact uttered by Charles Dudley Warner, his friend and collaborator.

With a degree of imagination, one can adjust both lines to suit the local setting. The first can be: “If you don’t like the weather in Manila now, just wait a few months.” From dry and cool, it will be dry and hot in March then wet, hot and most likely flooded starting in June, coinciding with the annual carousel of typhoons. The second needs less of a tweak as it’s part of one massive reality, far beyond anyone’s control. The best we can do, following the freakish weather systems that have blighted not just the Philippines but other parts of the world, is to be prepared for whatever outcome.

So here’s my suggestion. This “euphemistically” mild weather won’t last very long. Enjoy it while you can. In a few months, the noisiest headlines will once again whine about the opposite: how oppressive summertime is in the Philippines.  

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