About the great flood in Metro Manila

Greetings to my first grand daughter Kristen Erica “Keena” Avila-Tequillo, the 1st daughter of Atty. Jennoh and Fara A. Tequillo on the occasion of her 7th birthday today. Keena is turning out to be a sweet and lovable child, the apple in her Papa Jennoh’s eye and a reason for our “apos-tolic” Sundays with our grandchildren. God indeed blesses us with children because whether we like it or not… they are the only ones who continue our bloodline when all of us would have to leave this earth for our final destination with God.

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When I turned on my TV set last Tuesday evening, I was taken aback by the news report on ABS-CBN that 90 percent of Metro Manila was inundated by flooding. Reporters were saying that what is happening in Manila is even worse than what happened to them during Typhoon “Ondoy” and from what we saw on the video footages, they maybe right.

But the difference is, there was no typhoon, nor were there any low-pressure areas last Monday. The weather map only showed the entire Philippine archipelago with dark clouds. So why was Metro Manila suffering from floods of Biblical proportions when there was no typhoon? I did get a lot of text messages that links the plan of Congress to vote for the passage of the Reproductive Health (RH) Bill and that this was God’s way of showing his displeasure to our political leaders. One text even called this event the RH… for Rain Hard, because they cannot put a name into this weather disturbance.

Last Tuesday was Aug. 7, 2012 and one text message sent me opening my Bible to 8:7-12 in Genesis and it turned out to be the story of the Great Flood! Coincidence? There’s more. If you have a daily Bible reading book called 366 Days of the Lord for 2012, the reading last Tuesday was about our Lord Jesus Walking on water. Coincidence? To those who believe that God is so far away… perhaps it is just a coincidence. But to us who believe that God, who is the Alpha and the Omega, who has no beginning and no end… it is the very same God who destroyed Pharaoh during the time of Moses.

Call us lucky in Cebu because we had good weather. Last Tuesday we even played during the Aboitiz Invitational 2010 Pro-Am events. This is the 3rd straight year for the event, which has US$ 65,000 prize money. It attracted more than 70 pro golfers from the Asian Golf Tour, which is still going on at the Cebu Country Club (CCC). The professional golfers from Manila are truly glad that they are in Cebu right now…we can only hope that their homes were not affected by the massive flooding of the nation’s capital.

Meanwhile, back on the issue of Congress passing the RH Bill, which was supposed to have been put to vote (in haste) last Monday instead of Tuesday. But the issue of quorum surfaced and it seemed that Malacañang no longer had the numbers on the floor to force a vote. Hence, even ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol cut short its live coverage… and when Tuesday came, the rains worsened and the floods prevented Congress from holding a session.

People close to the Catholic Church insist that what happened in Metro Manila was some kind of Divine Intervention… natural calamities are often called “An Act of God.” If you read the Bible, you will read a multitude of stories about how God intervenes in the lives of his people. Some 3,000 years ago, Moses was in front of Pharaoh (the movie said he was Ramses, but historians are inclined to believe that it could be Thutmose I) asking him to free the Israelites, but Pharaoh was unmoved, well just like PNoy is unmoved.

But what few people understand is… the God who gave Moses the power to destroy Egypt is the very same God who faces PNoy today.

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Because these news reports have been tucked away from the banner headlines, few people know that today, Mindanao is burning, when a new group of Islamic freedom fighters that call themselves as the “Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) went on a rampage last week killing 10 soldiers. The BIFF is a splinter group from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) that recently assaulted the Philippine Army’s 1st Mechanized Infantry Brigade in Datu Unsay Shariff Aguak, Datu Piang, Datu Saudi Ampatuan and in Ampatuan Town. They were also assaulting troops in Midsayap in North Cotabato.

The BIFF is led by Ameril Umra Kato and he seems to be so unstoppable against the AFP. Now what is the President’s strategy to neutralize Umbra Kato? Sending more troops when he disappears into the mountains doesn’t solve the problem. But then, PNoy is just too focused on the priorities inside his head rather than the real needs of the Filipino people.

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