Mona Lisa

CHECKING the weather app a day before leaving the house has become a hard habit to break. Making sure floods won’t ruin the downtown appointment is a must otherwise you have to deal with a highway morphing into a river.

The Cagayanon already knows the streets to be avoided once it’s raining cows and carabaos. But if he lives and/or works downtown, he has no choice but to literally go with the flow. That’s why summer is a welcome respite for the Cagayanon who has had it with floods.

There’s progress, though, in the flood prevention department since the government has been building a drainage system in some parts of Cagayan de Oro. Will that work? Let’s cross our fingers and toes that it will finally solve the problem.

Knowing the problem is always the first step in solving it. Say, flooded streets can’t be solved by building more skyscrapers where people can live and work and therefore at least stay above flood waters. The streets will still be flooded and woe to the skyscraper resident who happens to be outside when it’s raining like Noah needs another ark.

But the government tends to create a problem and then try to solve it so it can pat itself on the back as the citizenry’s hero. For example, traffic could be avoided if only there was an efficient public transportation system. To the rescue is the government that’s now in the process of phasing out jeepneys. To be replaced by subway trains? Well, not in the near future.

The Pinoy’s resilience has been touted to be as strong as his warm smile amidst difficulties. He can even manage to smile while on top of a roof, with his flooded surroundings providing a grim backdrop. But that smile can be a façade to help him believe life can still go on despite the worst of times.

Kind of the Mona Lisa smile? Hmmm. That’s a small painting, by the way, which is displayed at the Louvre in Paris, a city that can be part of your revenge travel now that the lockdowns are over.

It’s when you travel to other countries that you start to notice how backward Pinas is. But some of Paris’s sidewalks and parks have dog poop, so, Pinas is not that backward after all. If you need more consuelo de bobo, New York has huge rats and cockroaches, too.

The secret behind contentment is the absence of comparison. So, let’s accept Pinas as it is because it’s through total acceptance that Pinoy can help solve the country’s problems.

There’s this saying, “Denial is not just a river in Egypt.” The Pinoy should never be in denial. He has to see reality even if it bites him.

The next item in Pinoy’s reality will be the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections in October 2023. Barangay officials are easier to reach since they live within the barangay unless they live elsewhere. Hmmm. How can a barangay official live in another barangay or even another municipality or city or province? Well, he’s merely following the example set by his mayor, vice mayor, governor, congressman, etc.