PART 2: Pepeng

Tonight we anxiously (is that even the right word?) wait for this next typhoon called Pepeng. Unlike Ondoy, Pepeng is like this big celebrity with a very good PR team behind. Early as Thursday, he's been building hype, fueled by the media, and of course, the obsessive monitoring of us social networking mainstays.

I am praying hard for the typhoon the just vanish. Especially if he's really as strong as the words about him has built him up to be. I am praying harder because as PAG-ASA has repeatedly announced, Pepeng is going to wreak havoc in our province. You see, in our province (Isabela), whenever there's a storm, we do not only go crazy worrying about our houses. Our hearts beat double time for our crops. Real-life crops, when destroyed, is more problematic than how Farmville shows it to be. It means great loss, not only of the harvest, but also the great deal of money spent to till the lands, buy the seeds, pesticides, fertilizers, etc. It means loss of EVERYTHING the farmers have worked on in the past months. And that is very heartbreaking.

I am hoping that Pepeng will turn out to be all hype. We've experienced a lot of typhoons like that in the past. Metro Manila newscasts would send out panic signals to us, only for us to prepare for a considerably normal rainy and breezy day.

I am glad though that the provincial government seems to be prepared, as I've seen on TV Patrol earlier this evening. I thought they would just treat this as just another atmospheric disturbance (cause we're so used to typhoons visiting our place, right after they do their thing in the Bicol region). But they've got relief goods and rubber boats ready. (And our province looks so good on TV haha).

As I am writing this, it's already raining in Isabela. And in my mind, I am still praying.

Just a normal rainy and breezy night please.