Last holidays, I got to travel with my brother to Manila from December 28 - January 2, for official business and spent the new year in Cebu City afterwards. During this time, the aftermath of Typhoon Odette (Rai) was still fresh in Tagbilaran City where the scenario was as chaotic as the day after the Typhoon.
When my brother and I left, there was no electricity, the streets were pitch black every single night and very weak signal. Water was scarce, and everyone kept hoarding goods in grocery stores, and fuel from gasoline stations. ATMs, banks, gasoline stations, water refilling stations, that were still functional after the storm were met with kilometers-long lines of people coming from different parts of the province.
Sometimes my brothers and I would line up to 5 to 12 hours just to meet our basic needs, withstanding the heat of the sun or humidity due to the lack of air-conditioning, fighting the urge not to be offended every time a person in front of us seems to allow a friend of theirs to cut in line. Bread and bottles of mineral water became scarce just days after the typhoon. Generators were sold out as early as the first week after the typhoon. Ice and ice cold drinks became a prized commodity by the time we left for Manila.
Suddenly leaving Tagbilaran City felt like I gained a break from being in a post-apocalyptic movie for a while. Imagine my reaction when I left the desolate place I called home at 3 am in the morning for the Panglao airport wherein there were no streetlights anywhere, and even seeing people lining up at gasoline stations at that time of day, then arriving at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila, place that is without any notion of scarcity or crisis, whatsoever ~~ NORMALCY.
Electricity. Lights as bright as a thousand suns. Generous un-restricted air-conditioning. 🥺🥺🥲🥲 I couldn't help but tear-up at the consistency of the four bars of data signal on my phone. Had to compose myself for a while or else, I'll start looking like an idiot.
A taxi ride later (and several failed attempts to communicate in Tagalog), I drank iced coffee (with actual ice cubes) for the first time since the Typhoon like:
Yakn0oOe????
I could only imagine how my brother is taking all of this in from his perspective since he has to experience these things plus the wonders of experiencing first times outside of Bohol:
👉 riding on a plane for the first time ✈️
👉 going to Starbucks for the first time (and "spending a heck load" for coffee) ☕
👉 going to SM Mall of Asia (MOA) for the first time and then asking me why there were so many good-looking girls there 🛍️
The guy has lived in the province for the majority of his life where his experiences of a "normally good day" doesn't involve spending over 500 PHP (9.74 USD) on cake and coffee, so I could understand the squeamish expression on his face 😅: "If it makes you feel any better, that 500 pesos is the minimum spending allowance of some people here" I said.
We strolled around SM Mall of Asia while the Christmas decorations were still up and did the most Filipino thing to do when in another new place:
It's really fun seeing this adventurous side of my brother experiencing something new. The first thing he noticed at the mall was the amount of attractive girls he could spot 😂. In his words, what he considered a "chick" back in Tagbilaran which are usually rare, run amock in MOA 🤣🤣.
He felt out of place with his outfit in an urban centre like MOA and was surprised to see skater boys in a mall, and pets in strollers... things that are so rare in the simple and humble hometown we come from. What they'd consider a normal outfit in Manila, would be considered social suicide from overdressing in the malls of Tagbilaran.
I just laughed at his comments, which was true to an extent. After strolling around and about and then getting tired (because we had to take turns in carrying heavy luggage around the mall), we realized that MOA really is a HUGE PLACE only after taking a cab on our way back to the airport, where we really see the ground we covered in comparison to the mall as a whole. We only covered 20% of the mall grounds with the remaining majority left undiscovered, and only left carrying a bag from Dogs in the City (I bought Cat mint for the family cat, Pluto and a new collar for Butchoy the dog) as the only thing we brought from that place home.
Our trip to Manila only lasted a day since I didn't have enough funds to extend our stay longer than we should. But our faces were clear: we were going to miss the access to unlimited air-conditioning and electricity in Manila 🤣 as we prepared ourselves to the same typhoon-stricken city of Cebu ✈️.
We spent the plane ride watching 'You Season 3'. I guess the 2nd plane ride of his life wasn't as special as the first 😂.
My boyfriend picked us up to the airport and I got the chance to compare all three cities at once. The urban Metro Manila that was out of Typhoon Odette's way, the urban Cebu City and my hometown.
From what I initially heard, I expected Cebu city to be in a better state than Tagbilaran, and it was! Mactan International Airport was as bright as the NAIA when we arrived, and it wasn't as necessarily humid so I guess they included a budget for air-conditioning compared to that of Panglao International Airport.
My boyfriend was kind enough to pick us up from the airport and accommodate us to their house. We planned this trip ahead because I promised my boyfriend that I would spend the new year in Cebu City, with him. My brother decided early on though that he'd return home earlier to get some errands done for my family's new years' eve, but we (my boyfriend, my brother and I) all agreed that he needed to be shown around Cebu City:
We did a bit of shopping in malls here and there, especially since there were more options in Cebu city market compared to that of Tagbilaran. We bought solar lamps, and a solar-powered charger/bluetooth speaker/radio for my grandma back home.
It was really great showing my brother around Robinsons Galleria and SM Sea Side (though the only interesting photos we took was at the Seaside Parking Lot):
We even decided to show my brother the more 'fancier' side of the city: La Vie Parisienne, a wine library up in Lahug, Cebu:
As expected, the fancy-ness and pricey-ness of the products gave him goosebumps, good thing two working-class adults were there with him that night 😂:
Even though he's not an alcohol person compared to his older sister (yours truly), the expressions of his face when he tries out new experiences are priceless. Eventually, at the influence of alcohol, he admitted that he would miss the many fancy-esque things that he still hasn't explored in Cebu City 😂.
I'm glad this guy got to be exposed to life outside the island for a bit so that both of us will get a chance to make comparisons and observations on the differences among the levels of urbanization between the three cities (and even the more rural municipalities of Eastern Bohol which I have already traveled by the time of writing this article), and all the more during the time when Typhoon Odette still left its claw marks on the Visayas wherein the differences are still pretty remarkable.
For one thing, by the time I left, in Tagbilaran, people were still at long line-ups in gasoline stations back home. In Cebu City, I didn't observe those similarly long lines.
In Tagbilaran, people could hardly see any sliver of light at night, unless one has a generator, or is an entity operating an essential business. In Lapu-Lapu city at that time, electricity had partially returned. Some parts of Cebu city still faced and outages but the scenario was a bit better than that back home.
Among the areas of Region 7, I already knew that the more well-known, and more economically beneficial areas will be the ones prioritized over the more rural municipalities, but actually feeling the differences when my brother and I travelled through Manila and Cebu from Tagbilaran (and then later on traveling to the more rural municipalities of Eastern Bohol) in such a short time is such a different and surreal experience.
I admit that I couldn't help but feel sad of the inequity. I felt like the ones who could offer more for the bigger whole will always make the headlines first over the ones who can't or lacking the opportunity to. It sucks but it is the way it is. Maybe that's why offering help to my fellow Boholanos at a time like this is something I feel strongly about, because aside from the fact that I belong to this group of people myself, I also know the limitations of this humble province where I grew up in, in terms of connections, economic capacity and competence.
When most people here live paycheck to paycheck or season to season, how and where are they going to get funding to rebuild their houses or businesses or recover their crops from the typhoon where they 100% rely on? Are we still going to plug in the resiliency narrative as people have always done?
Congratulations on the areas that have fully recovered and are up and about with electricity now by the way! Despite the sadness and slight feelings of #SANAOL envy 😂, we're happy for you... just don't forget to say thank you to the linemen, and every employee, employer, volunteer and government worker who chose to show up.
Stay tuned for my next article which will be about my involvement in the One Bohol Relief Distribution Drive to Brgy. Bonbonon, Pitogo Carlos P. Garcia island last Saturday (January 15, 2022).
Roxanne Marie is the twenty-year-old something who calls herself the Protean Creator. She is a chemical engineer by profession, pole-dancer and blogger by passion and frustration, and lastly, a life enthusiast. She is on a mission to rediscover her truth through the messy iterative process of learning, relearning and unlearning. Currently, she works as a science and research instructor in her hometown, Tagbilaran City, all the while documenting her misadventures, reflections and shenanigans as a working-class millennial here on Hive. If you like her content, don't forget to upvote and leave a comment to show some love. It would be an honor to have this post reblogged as well. Also, don't forget to follow her to be updated with her latest posts.
