President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s (PBBM) solution for the Super El Niño: a balde.
And he should know. During the 1986 People Power, when freedom-deprived Filipinos rushed to Malacañang Palace after the Marcoses fled, they found several plastic pails (balde) and dippers (tabo) inside the bathroom of PBBM’s father, then-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who was undergoing dialysis at the time. It was widely noted that the pails were kept there to ensure a constant supply of water for his critical medical needs.
A friend posted on Facebook that the Pinoy should listen to PBBM’s entire speech and not focus only on the balde. But who has the time to listen? People are fond of anything instant these days: the shorter the preparation and required focus, the better. Instant coffee. Instant noodles. Instant oatmeal. Just add water.
Years ago, sound bites were a TV network's bait for news-hungry viewers.
Zoom to the present. With ChatGPT for recaps and Facebook Live providing a blow-by-blow account of anything under the sun or even beyond the sun, sound bites have morphed into unverified quotes that quickly sting like bees, with the reddish bump as evidence.
And if it’s PBBM talking, is it really him? Or artificial intelligence (AI)? Only his PR team can tell?
There will come a time when everything will be by AI. Everything will sound like elevator muzak—it’s humming in the background while you’re trying to fight claustrophobia and suffocation due to body odor, hopefully not yours.
If you hate budots music and that happens to be the muzak while you’re trapped in an elevator during a brownout, that’s how an AI-controlled world will feel. Okay. I’m guessing.
While grocery-shopping on Monday, I happened to pass by the balde section and saw some beige-colored ones. After the confusion with the green leafy veggies—what do kamote tops look like?—I had run out of energy to choose what size of balde we’d need and how many. But one thing was sure: it has to be beige. And the supermarket had that color. Should I buy? My brain wasn’t ready. Haha. So, postponed to the next grocery-shopping day. Bye.
Aside from the balde, there’s the solar-powered emergency lamp, which I guess PBBM didn’t mention, unless he did.
Anyway, the Pinoy usually has at least one of these: emergency lamp, flashlight, candle. And there’s the cellphone that can do and has everything, including a flashlight.
During occasional brownouts in the evening, the cellphone flashlight is my most reliable reading and working companion. Once the Super El Niño is at its worst, though, those brownouts may level up to—gasp, God forbid—daily. Goodbye, occasional. Hence, the need for light sources that don’t rely on electricity. Which is when you realize electricity itself is luxury.
The definition of luxury is in the eye of the beholder, though. What's luxury to the homeless is worlds apart from what Small Laude considers luxury. But every human being has basic necessities.
Once nature starts to misbehave due to climate change, that’s when we miss what we’re taking for granted now: electricity, water, food.
Talk of food, I’m the only carnivore in our household. Since I’m the designated grocery-shopper, I still have to buy carbs, veggies, and fruits. And leaves have become a struggle to differentiate: kamote tops, alugbati, saluyot, Chinese kangkong, native kangkong.
Wish ko lang they would adopt the carnivore diet already so that all I have to buy are animals—beef, pork, chicken, fish, eggs—and salt. Simple living, eh?
But when there’s food scarcity, even the carnivore will have to eat whatever is there. He can’t be choosy anymore.
