The weather bureau Pagasa announced on Friday, June 4, 2021, that summer was finally over and that the rainy season had finally started.
That means, we can expect rain. Lots of it.
And it did. Over the weekend. It might not have come down in torrents, but it still got the sidewalks and roads wet and muddied. You know, inconveniencing a lot of pedestrians.
I’m not sure if certain areas of the metro experienced flooding. That would have been a damper. For the most part, though, the rain was steady but light. Perhaps, the metro got off the hook that time.
You see, in recent years, heavy downpours have caused immediate flooding.
Of course, it depends where you are. The uptown area of Cebu City is not prone to a sudden rise in the water level only because the runoff heads straight downtown before draining out into the sea, which is not that far.
So why am I talking about the weather?
Well, I’ve already said what there needs to be said about our governor’s run-in with the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) over guidelines and protocols for arriving overseas Filipino workers and returning overseas Filipinos. Although, “run-in” may not be the right word to describe what Cebu is trying to tell the national government.
I think I can safely say that majority of Cebuanos support Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia’s stand on local autonomy. So she has found a better way to deal with the coronavirus situation that minimizes the emotional and financial burden of Filipinos, not just Cebuanos, who return to the country via the Mactan-Cebu International Airport. She should be commended and not made out to look defiant.
Anyway, representatives of the seven districts in Cebu and the representative of the Ako Bisaya Party-list signed a manifesto of support for Garcia’s policy on Sunday, June 6.
I guess, if national officials insist on having their way, there’s nothing Cebu or Garcia can do about it.
It can go ahead and rain on Cebu’s parade, figuratively speaking, but luckily for Cebu it has an umbrella that is big enough to protect it from getting drenched.
And what might that “umbrella” be?
Oh let’s not play coy. We all know Cebu is a vote-rich province. One that delivered for the current administration in Malacañang in the last polls. It’s in the Palace’s best interest to keep Cebu dry. At all cost.
But hey, with politics anything can happen.
By the way, I learned something new from Pagasa-Mactan weather specialist Jhomer Eclarino on Sunday. It’s called a “monsoon break.” And no, it’s not the title of Arundhati Roy’s latest novel.
Maybe the IATF should look it up.