Storm warning

"FILIPINIANA," a term coined by librarians, is used to describe books that deal with the Philippines or books on non-Philippine subjects by Filipino authors. Thus, in any library or bookstore a place for these books is known as the Filipiniana section.

Some people are of the opinion that "Filipiniana" should be merged with other books in a library or bookstore, but having these segregated in one place makes searching a lot easier. In a large used bookstore like the Strand in New York, which boasts of 14 miles of books, looking for Filipiniana can be a bit of a challenge. These are shelved under "Asia" or "Far East" or even "Oceania." They are also hidden with books on Spain or the history of the United States. In better days one could buy books from the American period 1898-1945 for a dollar or less; today prices are steep as many Filipinos try to acquire a tangible slice of their heritage.

One of the books I regret having given away was an autographed copy of Joseph Earle Stevens' "Yesterdays in the Philippines" (New York: Scribner's, 1898) that was not just a pretty book but a delightful read. Stevens lived in Manila in the last decade of the 19th century and while his social world revolved around "foreigners," his description of the Philippines and the Filipinos is worth reading again in our time.

Forced indoors by the inclement weather the past few days, I decided to re-read his encounters with typhoons. I am glad I do not live in a house by the bay with a flimsy tin roof and sliding capiz widows, but the street scenes he described over a century ago remain: "The natives never carry umbrellas in the rain, but march along and do not seem to mind getting wet to the skin. They do indeed look bedraggled in their thin clothes that cling like sticking-plaster, and it seems as if they would get the fever."

Television news brought the extent of the flood and the damage into our living rooms. A number of people drowned while others frolicked in the murky water.

Today we have a government weather station, but in the past people turned to the Jesuits, the famous Manila Observatory and of course the household barometer that carried the name of the observatory director, Padre Federico Faura, S.J.: "Early in this eventful week, warnings came from our most excellent observatory, run by the Jesuit priests, that trouble was brewing down in the Pacific to the south and east, and by Friday Signal No. 1 of the danger system was displayed on the flagstaff of the look-out tower. The news about the storm was indefinite, but the villain was supposed to be slowly moving northwest, headed directly for Manila. Saturday up went Signal No. 2, and in the afternoon No. 3 and by evening No. 4. Still everything was calm and peaceful, and Sunday morning dawned pleasant but for the exception of a dull haze. Early in the afternoon went signal No. 5, which means that things are getting pretty bad, and which is not far from No. 8, the worst that can be hoisted."

These days we only get to Signal No. 3. Are we better protected now? Maybe typhoons are tamer. Then as now, boats were brought into the breakwater in Manila and securely fastened with anchors and ropes. Stevens noted that Filipinos also fastened the nipa roofs in anticipation of the storm that eventually blew off his tin roof.

Today we have television, radio and cell phones to bring us weather bulletins. A century ago, a town crier did the same job:

"...Shortly after tiffin [a light meal, usually lunch] at our residence by the seaside, our gaze was attracted by a native coming down the street, dressed in a black coat with shirt-tails hanging out beneath, and wearing white trousers and a tall hat. He carried a decorated cane, wore no shoes, and marched down the center of the street, giving utterance to solemn sentences in a deep musical voice. In short he was the official crier to herald the coming of the typhoon, and as he marched along the bells up in the old church beyond our house rang out what poets would call a 'wild warning plea.'"

Rain and wind produced a different kind of noise in wooden houses and Stevens could not sleep. "Our house trembled like a blushing bride before the altar, and for the triumphal music of the Wedding March the tin was suddenly stripped off our rain-shed roof like so much paper. And then the racket! Great pieces of tin were slapping around against the house like it was possessed; the trees in the front garden were sawing against the cornices, as if they wanted to get in, and the rush of air outside seemed to generate a vacuum within.

"After the typhoon came the floods, and the old Pasig covered the adjacent country. The water concealed the road to the uptown club at Nagtajan under a depth of several feet, and one could without difficulty row into the billiard-room or play water polo in the bowling alley. Two of my friends were nearly drowned while trying to drive when they should have swum or gone by boat. The pony walked off with their carriage into a rice-field, in the darkness, and was drowned in more than eight feet of water. The boys only crawled out with difficulty and just managed to reach 'dry land' (that with three feet of water over it) in the nick of time."

Today people fall into open manholes or, like Vandolph, bring whole vehicles into a flood pit. Some things never change.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu