Fighting Cocks, Betting Lives

IN A FLASH Disaster prone

After that Matina flash flood had subsided just hours following the unfortunate incident, Davao City Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte immediately expressed grief over the loss of lives brought about by an overflowing river that swept through 5 barangays in complete disarray that left thousands homeless and had taken 25 lives the morning after, while countless others are still missing. Duterte said that the incident was the worst ever in terms of damage and of lives wasted.

The former mayor said that residents living near the Matina Pangi River, where the waters had risen as high as their houses standing nearby, had already been warned by the local government of a possible overflow. It was said that the Talomo River, a large stream a few kilometers away from the Matina area was the one prone to inundation and flood, and not the Pangi River, which was considered "dead" by some residents prior to the deluge.

But speaking perhaps in his usual gait of uncomfortable calm, Duterte must have settled his grief on an area where some dead fighting cocks have been found sprawling amid garbage and mud. Unfazed by the extent of such a kill, and its inherent effect to the owners, he ordered these roosters to be delivered straight to their kitchens. “Ihawa na ninyo inyong mga manok. Dili na labot sa bayaran sa gobyerno,” Duterte said, after the local government had earlier vowed to extend aid to the victims. Duterte, however, has since called a special session, declaring the areas affected under a state of calamity, for it to be given enough help as the evacuation and relocation of most of its residents continue to mount.

And despite the seriousness of the situation, the former mayor still has enough wicked humor left in his arsenal, which happens to be his calling card, as always, although this time at the sorry expense of some flood victims. Those dead fighting cocks, most often than not, are already in the kitchen sink by now. And it should be because he said it so. But Duterte was probably reacting out of the fullness of his heart. It may be just an act of contrition, or some quick-witted humor, or a resignation perhaps, after repeated warnings were repeatedly ignored, but it was more like a disappointment on his part. Having been a victim of floods himself when he was still living in Bangkal a few years back, he probably must have known how these notorious floods work, since Bangkal has had its own share of deluge after a heavy downpour. Nevertheless, because these roosters are mere irritants to the growing pressure of finding missing persons around, their presence has aggravated his overt disappointment over the tragedy, like adding enough insult to an already lingering injury.

But, of course, these are just all part of the growing pains of a growing city. Davao is fast becoming a global neighborhood. And small things, like those living under the mercy of an unpredictable river, certainly can't keep up. People living beside a river or trying to make some ends meet under a city bridge are considered minor glitches compared to those big cuts the city is facing, like terrorism and the economy. And not until these small things are exposed in the light that they become big. We can only hope that these people who are now living in constant fear of the water have been warned in a very big way now that it has affected them in a very big manner. It has affected a big person in Duterte, nonetheless, who, at that moment, had somehow developed a growing dislike of those fighting cocks wasting away in front of him. The flood almost reduced a barangay into a rubble, in as much as it had reduced Duterte’s resolve into some "growing pains" as his warnings were considered a game by some of his immediate neighbors.

"Kaluoy sa akong estatwa, hapit jud malumos sa baha." ---Nico Alconaba

Perhaps hitting big in a derby is more urgent than having your safety secured in the event a flood. And no matter how many assurances the city could get while generating a lot of interest in investors and infrastructures; it doesn’t discount the fact that a lot of its residents are still having a fatalistic view of success under the guise of overnight success and shortcuts. Comforts in life are sometimes set aside in favor of cheap thrills and easy money, regardless of the dangers these rising waters could do to a shanty sticking itself underneath the bridge, and still betting on a city life even if it means calamity just outside the door, natural or otherwise. And it seemed like a slap on the former mayor’s face that a seemingly superficial act, with all of its pot money and insurances, has contributed to the direness of the situation.

The City Engineer’s Office, which has its own history of betting problems (either officials howling at each other or implementations delayed out of sheer politics), should guarantee a maximum equal bet on this one. What happened in Matina should have been prevented if minimum bets had already been thrown at “Meron” instead of cutting a deal with “Wala”, structures that could have been built to prevent these settlers from erecting their houses on a slippery slope, dikes that could avert a possible soil erosion and manholes that could thwart a growing flood.

We should have learned a lesson out of that 2002 flood. The year has just started. People were coming off a heavy holiday of noche buenas and New Year resolutions. Workers were in a transitional period from a sluggish season of resting and roaming around the city malls, anticipating for some “sale” off RTWs and cheap bric-a-bracs, and those who have had the holiday season extended were still doing some barbeques late into the night. Everybody felt the need to extend the festivities with some spurts of singing, pulutan and beer bottles in front of a videoke. Christmas was still in the air, the Three Magis had not yet arrived, so there’s plenty of time to extend the holidays by doing the same binges of the previous month. To cut a potentially long story short, everything seemed okay. Another year had past, here comes another one. And then the flood came.

Every living and non-living thing off the banks of the Bacaca-Maa-Bankerohan river route suffered significantly under water, although it wasn’t as cutting as it did in Matina. And incidentally, Vice Mayor Duterte, then the city mayor, was allegedly incensed at that time after knowing that a large amount of dam water had been released to the river which contributed to its sudden rise. Images of it were so identical in the Matina debacle; the comparisons were so pronounced. If both the City Engineer’s and the City Housing can map out a plan in order to heal the cuts inflicted by the flooding blades of that night, it wouldn't be too hard to cross the bridge again and move on with it.

It is as if we are betting for the red against the white if the recuperation process remains stagnant despite the 25 that have been lost, or possibly even more. The local government, now takes the cloak of a gaffer, has to decide whether to stump that wood and watch the game going or leave the game and bet on life. Duterte’s reaction was so emblematic we need not scour anymore for some life amid that endless dump of cars, corpses and chickens; we’ll just have to listen in between those words and feel the unspoken ones. Syete diyes.

But this is still a long fight. Every citizen in that side of the river has to rub every precious feather they had saved from that deluge, nurture them again, if possible, away from their former habitat, as it breeds another life, another flight, another fight, another bet from the uncertainties of nature, whether it’s a flood or some stroke of human neglect. It would be a no-brainer to consider these fighting cocks more expensive than those average citizens living beside the Pangi River. Like the sabongeros and the Lotto enthusiasts, these people are very much a part of the scene in the same way that they are also very much a part of the sin why so many of these fighting cocks suffered the same fate as with those 25 (and counting?). And unless the local government starts betting on life (not the anti-RH Bill kind, by the way), instead of trying to increase the number of investors and the immediate imposition of development at the expense of those not only living under the bridge, but living under the radar as well, many still will keep on fighting, fighting for their very lives.