Remembrance of the Wave

It might have been noticeable that, aside from revealing my fascination for the End Times, I have delved in Apocalyptic themes recently. It happens whenever I'm pissed off enough to rant. I guess, in my helplessness, I resort to the eschatological and seek the ultimate justice. Before everyone gets fed up with this fear-mongering, allow me one last venture into the supernatural, at least for this year.

Last November 13, 2004, I received a forwarded email, the screenshot of which is shown below...


Well, at first glance it looks like one of those dire predictions of the future. By the way, part of that email, which isn't shown anymore, is an article from Phivolcs. This more scientific earthquake projection which coincided with the prediction is what pushed the original author to finally spread the word. What impresses me is that the prediction imposes a deadline: before the year 2004 ends, there will be a great earthquake that will devastate the Philippines, or Luzon to be a bit more precise. Furthermore, there is the claim: the old man has never missed.

I initially surmised that this should be a very strong earthquake, stronger than any other quake before it, to topple down every building in an area and erase an entire town from the map. Anyway, I shrugged, if ever it would happen by the end of the year, I might already be vacationing in Bicol; thus, I would be spared from its full force.

The old man was off by a few thousands of kilometers, and I was more precise with the timing of the event.

I was eating breakfast at our Naga City home when news of a magnitude 9 tremor from CNN Breaking News got my attention. A magnitude 9 earthquake was really strong, the strongest I had heard of in my twenty years on this earth; still, I didn't think this can flatten all buildings within its area. That may be true, but there was something else that I hadn't thought of. Hours later, CNN reported of a tsunami from that quake hitting Thailand and Malaysia, and later still in the afternoon, the same tsunami hit India. Upon the news anchor's query, the scientist at the US Geological Survey related this recent turn-of-events to a Pacific-wide tsunami decades ago. That was the time I had an inkling that this was something big. Later, the waves reached Africa.

The days passed and the kill count grew from hundreds to thousands to tens of thousands. Now it was really big. More than a week later, with the kill count pushing a hundred thousand, ground zero was finally reached by rescuers. As shown in before-and-after satellite pictures, the town of Banda Aceh was in complete ruins, erased from the map as the old man had said.

I guess the old man really did see beforehand these visions I saw in the TV screen. It was just he mistook the similar-looking Southeast Asian faces and places to be Filipino.

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE ENTRY COLLAPSE ENTRY

Wrestling with the Wind (Part 3 of 3)

Oh great, this third and last part got postponed for a long enough period to have two more super typhoons pass the country, with the latest, Reming (Durian to the rest of the world), almost threatened another destructive episode right here in Metro Manila. In fact another one is upon the Philippines, Seniang (Utor to the rest of the world), threatening a deluge to compensate for its not-so-strong winds.

Rants

Back to Reming, good thing this latest cloud spiral of doom decided to change course. Else the metropolis will once again get plunged to darkness. Once again the massive power failure would affect the water supply for most parts. How long would another round of deprivation last? Nine days also? Two weeks? When Naga City was struck by Milenyo, with greater intensity than Metro Manila, mind you, they got their electricity back in two to three days. This "provincial city", like other "provincial cities", beat any NCR city by days in fully restoring power to their constituents. How's that for "Imperial Manila"? They can't even back their haughtiness up!

In fact, Meralco kept proclaiming in the news, after more than a week, that they got their systems 99% restored. Was this godforsaken kilometers long stretch of darkness and dryness along C5 composed mostly of military housing and squatters a mere 1% for them? One percent of income I presume? Let all of them suffer, Meralco must have implied when they de-prioritized repair in those areas, as punishment for them having some people that had stolen the cables that would have made the restoration work a lot easier, faster, cheaper, cheaper and cheaper. Let them suffer, these people who had, for the longest time, connected illegally to the grid. What kind of reasoning is that? It's like Globe refusing to repair a bombed-out cellsite because the people in that area have allowed the NPA to flourish or cutting the signal around an area because of too much fraudulent activities. At the very least you do not hear Globe whine openly in media about such NPA-infested areas, and proclaim them de-prioritized. So Meralco is more "honest" then? It's not that I would condone the stealing of the cables and electricity, but should we law-abiding citizen's whose only real fault was to be neighbors with these lowlifes be made to suffer as well? Should we who refused to participate in the orgy of stealing be accused of condoning them? Why not recognize that we are helpless as well, that we can be threatened by these thieves into submission.

That was just for the electrical shortage, but what irked me more was the loss of water. Electricity had only been harnessed by humanity for no more than 200 years, but water has been part of human existence ever since the start. Thus the need for it is greater, more primordial. Water entrepreneurs made a killing with their delivery services for the nine days we had no water. I have no beef with them. Even if they jack their prices up I understood them for they are merely following supply-and-demand tenets. Besides, they are doing honest labor as they pedal around the complex and carry liters up the stairs. What raised my blood pressure was our housing administration that had no qualms of violating laws just to earn a few tens of thousands of bucks per day aside from their usual racket of additional charges for every utility that enters the housing complex. Some wise guy in their hierarchy had the great idea of wrenching open the fire hydrants in our neighborhood. Then they charged hapless residents of a few pesos per gallon with the reasoning that these hydrants pass through their meters. Bullshit! The mere fact that these hydrants had water while the water pipes in the housing complex were dry as a desert makes that assertion doubtful. Besides, these are fire hydrants, to be used by firefighters in case there's a fire. These lucky bastards should be thankful nobody raised this charging of water from a hydrant to the Bureau of Fire Protection. Why not power instead the pumps of the housing complex with generators, wise guy? Oh, that would be costly; all the profit from the rackets will be lost. Yeah you're a wise guy indeed, asshole!

You've noticed I haven't talked about billboards yet. That's because it's the one topic that has been talked to death in public. I'd rather talk about the fallen trees, and fallen lampposts. See how much of those trees were shallowly-planted in some half-hearted attempt to comply with environmental or aesthetic standards, which were feeble in the first place. Similarly, the shallowly-planted lampposts on the other hand are testaments to half-hearted--no, heartless public service (read the book Pork and Other Perks to find out what I mean). Well as for the billboards, I've been observing the humongous one in Guadalupe. Its first ad after Milenyo displayed the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It reminded me of how people turn to God once they start feeling their mortality. The next ad, after the billboard reduced its height by about two meters, had Manny Pacquiao on it. So, they'll fight it out now, huh. When Pacquiao furled up under the threat of Reming, the next ad to be unfurled declares the "power of beauty" or something. Great shades of Imelda!

It really was good that Reming changed course. It's not so much the natural disasters that make me bristle, but the man-made disasters that follow it.

Sermon

It makes me think on how Sodom and Gomorrah was actually destroyed. Was it the raining of fire and brimstone that destroyed those cities? Or could it be how the people reacted afterwards that did them in? Maybe that was why Lot was not allowed by God to look back at the city while it was being destroyed. Maybe God did not want Lot's eyes to be defiled by witnessing what the people were doing to each other and not by what the fire and brimstone was doing to the city.

But there is hope. Remember what God promised to Abraham while the patriarch was bargaining with Him about the fate of the sinful city? God said that as long as a few good people remain, the city will be spared. Same thing with Nineveh, when the people changed their ways after hearing from Jonah, the city was spared. Again, before that, didn't Jonah give up on Nineveh upon learning of the prophecy? Could've Jonah seen a cataclysm that was inevitable, like a tsunami, a typhoon, a meteor barrage? Perhaps disaster still visited Nineveh, but because the people have changed, those who survived managed to rise up after the calamity by sheer power of a true community rather than succumb to selfish interests and ultimately, destruction.

Perspective

You think Metro Manila's experience of Milenyo was bad? Remember that it is usually the Bicol Region that faces the full power of a typhoon fresh from gathering power over the Pacific Ocean. And in Bicol, it is usually the province of Catanduanes that has the unwanted privilege of being the first province to meet the howler head-on. Furthermore, being in a remote area, the aftermath could be something like this.

In the aftermath of Reming, this region's unfortunate circumstance has been highlighted once again. This latest super typhoon might rival Rosing in terms of the destruction it has wrought in Naga. But more than that is the tragedy bestowed upon the neighboring province of Albay. It was less than half a year ago that the people in charge have handled with flying colors the disaster mitigation in the light of a restive Mayon Volcano. It is frustrating now that they are left with about 500 dead (possibly more) from the sliding of volcanic debris from the otherwise beautifully inclined slopes of the volcano. As if, in some sinister improvisation, Mt. Mayon was merely waiting for a typhoon with diluvial rains to dislodge the debris it earlier deposited on its slopes, in the end the mystical volcano again pulled a fast one on them.

Help them please, please.


Other parts of the series:
1 2 3

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE ENTRY COLLAPSE ENTRY

Not Another End of the World

Ever since my father persuaded the family to read a series of newspaper articles pertaining to Marian prophecies and a coming "Three Days of Darkness" in an effort to make us turn away from our sinful ways, I had been fascinated by Apocalyptic scenarios (it helps when your father is alarmist especially when it comes to religion). A few years later, my most read part of the family Good News Bible is the Book of Revelations, followed by the Old Testament prophecies. I've read them enough to know that these writings are not really so much glimpses on the things to come but more of messages of hope for the victorious future amidst the present tribulations for keeping the faith. Besides, they don't really give out an exact date, merely signs. But what if there was a given date for destruction? More than that, what if different factors like religious, scientific, social, etc. suggesting various scenarios for the end all converge on that date?

Remember Y2K? I first learned about it in a 1995 article in that good old tech magazine Popular Mechanics. The writer was sharing how he was testing his personal computer (an ancient unknown model by today, I assume) by setting its date to a few minutes before January 1, 2000. While waiting for zero hour, he enumerated what the experts back then believe would happen to vulnerable computer systems when they encounter the year 2000. I don't remember the details anymore, but the fearful scenarios have been well-known even by then. It was due to these speculations that he became curious and wanted to test them himself. His computer was now seconds away from revealing the results...and it conked out. Oh well, he said, better start readying computers for that moment five years away. Yes, they know how to prevent it even back then, but humans are known procrastinators. To illustrate, after reading the article, I understood the principle of Y2K: that computers, processing only two digits for the year, will get confused upon encountering the year 2000 and might do crazy things because of this. However, that was a year before my computer subject in elementary, and not seeing much relevance back then (I was living a relatively low-tech lifestyle in the province), I brushed this knowledge aside.

It was only in 1998 that Y2K started capturing public attention. By this time, it has been colored with other Apocalyptic predictions ranging from Nostradamus, New Age prophets, the friendly neighborhood albularyo, and any other pundit whose story managed to get TV coverage or whose book managed to get published. (That's what happens when the media gets involved.) It turns out the thousand-year milestone has been a favorite end-of-times date. By around this time we get buzzwords like "Y2K compliant" as companies and other institutions rush to protect their computer systems and their business. Others would like to prepare for the inevitable end by stacking up supplies and preparing the bunker, or cave, or, to force the issue, performing rituals like mass suicide. Still, others would just like to party like there was no tomorrow. If the world was about to end, at least they would go down partying. Otherwise, it was a novel experience to do a countdown and watch 1999 turn into 2000. Novel enough for a big party, like what their predecessors did at the turn of the 20th century; thus, we had the millennium songs of Jennifer Lopez, Will Smith, and the Backstreet Boys (Incidentally, their songs and videos contain common themes like the future, the past, the Y2K bug, and, yes, parteeeh!).

Since January 1, 2000 was essentially New Year's Day, I am more inclined to the party aspect of things since it coincides with what I usually do around that time. Also, as seen in CNN, other countries were also preparing their own big celebrations. It came to pass that something global did happen in New Year's Day, but it wasn't a catastrophe. On the contrary, the world was one in partying. The last time the world was one in doing something was World War II. It appeared that the world has markedly improved on its ways, and, as the more optimistic people had predicted, the new millennium will usher in a new Renaissance for humanity.

Not.

Anyway, in the summer of year 2000, I was enjoying the Discovery Channel documentary Mysteries of the Ancient Civilizations. The documentary explored peculiar commonalities among the civilizations like the presence of pyramids, the alignment of structures with constellations, and the presence of a Great Flood myth, among many other themes. In the part about the South American civilizations, they featured the Mayan calendar. This calendar is said to rival the present-day Gregorian system in its efficiency and precision in recording the passage of time. One thing peculiar with the Mayan calendar is its having an end date, says the documentary, and this end date, believed by the Mayans to be the end of Time, ends on (at this point the documentary ups the ante by having the animated gears of the calendar stop one by one, each with a foreboding click) December 24, 2023 (the final gear ends with the most ominous thud).

Oh great, I said to myself, after Y2K, we have to contend with another supposedly "End of the World." By then I would be 39. I guess by that time I had enough experience in my life. Besides, as before, this one's too far away. In any case, I marked the date in my cellphone's calendar.

A few years later in college, I stumbled upon the book Domain by Steve Alten. So much for Discovery Channel dramatics, the book states the end of the particular Mayan calendar cycle is on December 21, 2012, the Winter Solstice of that year. The book is somewhat a written version of the Ancient Civilizations documentary since it also explores the commonalities of the civilizations. In addition to that, though, it provides a fictional answer to the questions surrounding the mystery. I won't spoil it for the prospective readers out there, but the book itself essentially gives it away from the very start, which in my opinion ruins the suspense. It was after reading the book that my interest in 2012 became aroused to the point that I would monitor and research about it every now and then. (The pervasive presence of the Internet, of course, was another factor.) So, what have I found out about it? Just like the year 2000, various sources have offered, some independent of other sources, various scenarios for 2012.

One may conclude that something would happen by around that time, but which scenario would prevail? As a man of science, with Astronomy being my favorite branch, I would point out to two events: one is an alignment of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and the sun in the sky by December 21, 2012, the other is a heightened solar activity around that year. The former is as sure as the sun rising in the east every morning, while the latter is as sure as the weather prediction for the next few days. The heightened solar activity brings about solar storms. These storms, when headed directly to the Earth, are known to be destructive to technology, although previous encounters didn't produce heavy and lasting damage (But if the Internet is damaged, then it's the end of the blogging world. Catastrophic indeed.) The radiation it brings can also be lethal, but the Earth's surface is protected by the planet's magnetic field. Meanwhile, the alignment basically is just a curious configuration in the sky. As to what it can do to Earth, this one is open to speculation. For instance, a planetary alignment last May 5, 2000 caused a minor stir back then. Mostly it was just media hype. The people had just came from the Y2K non-catastrophe, and also the alignment wasn't really as perfect and spectacular as all the planets in the Solar System queuing up in straight line for a pose. And yes, nothing happened.

December 21, 2012 may indeed turn out a non-event as well. But some of us may do a Haruhi Suzumiya and wish that, for excitement's sake, something just happen to distract us from a humdrum, conflict-filled, angsty life on Earth. Perhaps another world party is in order. Besides, it's just a few days before Christmas anyway.

-oOo-

Links

The most comprehensive database I know of 2012-related stuff is found in Dire Gnosis. This site compiles anything and everything related to 2012, so, although the owner also provides reviews, an information overload warning is in order.

What can mere humans do in face of planetary cataclysm? It's not that easy to stop a galactic alignment compared to tinkering with computer systems. Well, we can wait for the completion of my inter-galactic space ship that will ferry us to the stars, but don't count on me finishing that one on time. Perhaps you may just wait for the aliens to come; although according to New-Age gurus, they may be a bit choosy, if they come in the first place. Instead of running away, isn't it better to face the problem head-on? Well, a group has thought of a way, which in theory, they claim, may be able to influence the cosmic order: humanity must unite, pun intended, to achieve Global Orgasm.

O-kaay.

Whatever happens, at least, when you start getting the media hype by, say 2010, you can tell them that you read it here first at Highway Drift.

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE ENTRY COLLAPSE ENTRY