Salt and Lepto

A funny newsbit recently that found itself in mainstream media is the use of  salt to dilute the leptospira bacteria in floodwaters.  In fact, one tabloid headline yesterday read: TUBIG-DAGAT, GAMOT SA LEPTO.  Although this might have some basis scientifically, because the bacteria might be susceptible to high saline content, novel studies must be done.  And should this be conclusively favorable, how many tons of rock salt will we need to rid the Metro of lepto-causing bacteria.

Solution: Get rid of floodwaters by all means, through the concerted efforts of governments (national and local) and the people.  With this, the lepto scare will die soon.

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It all comes down to this series of typhoons that almost wiped out Metro Manila, the capital of this archipelago, whose streets have recently been converted to tributaries of rivers and other large bodies of water, lakes, seas what have you removing traces of structures that once stood on them.  Ondoy knocked down the city to its feet when it released a huge volume of rainfall that is unprecendented in recent history.  All drainage systems were clogged with garbage that is severalfold more than we could imagine if all our own garbage comes back to us humans.

The flood that we had in our place was the worst flood I experienced in my lifetime.  The experience was almost surreal but in reality was close to being tragic when I saw the floodings in other areas.  Too much water claimed so many lives and damaged properties in so little time.  The rise of water was really fast and unabated.  There was nothing that we could do to save some of our important stuff.  The sense of powerlessness was there.  Disaster it really was.

To this day, the water level in the river at the back of our house knows no boundaries.  It rises and falls with the tide and comes and goes in our house. 

Meanwhile, footages of the effects of Pepeng, the weird typhoon that it was–the first typhoon to ever stray off course on its way out of the country only to come back again and wreak more havoc–makes us feel how fortunate we still are.  Landslides burying living people dead are more terrible than floodings.

Environmental degradation, climate change, the end of days, these take on almost similar meanings now in the context of what’s happening to the country and to some of our neighbors in Asia.  A deep sense of atonement for our acts should be in the making in order for us to be saved.  Lord, help us!