Ronald Ramirez and his family were stuck in the muddied streets near their house at the Provident Village in Marikina City, nearly unable to move. Like many other communities in this part of Metro Manila, Provident Village had been hard-hit by storm “Ondoy" and inundated by a rapidly-swelling and debris-laden Marikina River. Just as he was starting to lose hope, however, Ronald chanced upon their first good fortune in days. Approaching them was a jeepney, slowly moving through knee-deep mud on its way out of the devastated middle-class village. “Puwede po bang makisabay hanggang labasan (Can we hitch a ride up to the village gate)?" Ronald said with a loud voice, anxious to call the driver’s attention. His hair was tousled, his clothes caked with mud.
It has been 10 days since the floodwaters retreated, but Provident Village remains without electricity, its streets still buried in deep and thick mud. Nevertheless, residents began trickling back to the village – whether to clean up the mess and try to stay, or just to retrieve whatever items they could save. Ronald, who works in sales, told GMANews.TV that he had returned to their house along with his wife and son to salvage any remaining belongings. On their way out, they carried buckets and bags full of items they had fished out from the muck. But the soggy load weighed them down so much, they found it near-impossible to plow through the mud up to the village gates. The muck was so thick that Ronald lost his sandals while slogging across the streets. He had to improvise on the spot. He found a rubber shoe for his right foot, and a leather shoe for his left foot – both picked up from the nearby debris. His family boarded the jeepney with their load. But as the vehicle started to move, Ronald remembered something. “Wait!" he told the driver. “I need to do one last thing before we go. Please wait for me here." He alighted and waded to the small chapel just across their house. Inside the chapel, Ronald spotted the crucifix among the altar objects in disarray. He quickly set it right. “I am a Catholic, and I can’t stand seeing the crucifix in that position," Ronald said. Staring at the now-deserted village, Ronald could not believe that this was the same beautiful place they called home for the last 12 years, since they started renting a house there in 1997.
As the jeepney plodded through muddy streets toward the village gates, Ronald, his wife and son peered through the vehicle’s windows. It was like going down memory lane, but with different eyes. “We really like this place. It is peaceful and quiet here," Ronald told GMANews.TV, saying he enjoyed morning jogs inside the village. But the idyllic images in his mind were in stark contrast to the all too real scenes of destruction that whizzed by. A sea of brown dominated the area, with mud coating every surface on the subdivision, from trees and cars to front yards and roofs. Many houses had shattered glass windows. Cars lay topsy-turvy on the streets, some partly submerged in mud like sunken ships, others leaning precariously onto each other, like a mindless ogre had played with them on flooded streets. Gangs of workmen, hired by homeowners, were already busy repairing some houses. A short distance from the road, Ronald saw some stranded janitor fish desperately flapping in the mud, probably washed up by the flooded Marikina River. “Is that a cat there?" Ronald said, jolted from his seat by the sight of a lifeless feline half-buried in drying mud on the curb. Over at Riverside Street, at the rear section of the village, dead dogs lay on the ground. A day after the floodwaters subsided, rescuers had retrieved a corpse stuck on the branches of a tree. The floods did not discriminate on who would become victim. Humans and their pets, rich and poor, housemaids and celebrities alike, including actress Christine Reyes, were trapped on rooftops as the rising waters crept up to the second floor of residential homes. To clean up the subdivision, the Philippine military and the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) have been raking up a thick mix of mud, garbage and other debris since last week. Police security in the area was also beefed up to protect houses from looters. Provident Village was a perfect representation of the magnitude of the Ondoy disaster. Just outside the subdivision, the situation was no different.
Alleys along Bonifacio Avenue were deserted and traffic was rerouted as government dump trucks attempted to haul humongous piles of garbage. The government estimates it would take at least two weeks to clean up Marikina, and two months for the whole of Metro Manila. Although the floods had destroyed most of the facilities at the Marikina city hall and left P10 billion in damages, the local government is keeping faith. Outside the city hall, officials draped a large tarpaulin signage with a printed call for every Marikeño to read: “
Bangon Marikina: Kaya natin ito! (Stand up, Marikina. We can do it!)" Back inside Provident Village, the jeepney carrying Ronald and his family was nearing the exit. Here, the putrid smell of garbage was replaced by the distinct aroma of roasted coffee that wafted from another part of the village. It turned out that a small ice cream factory was not spared from the raging floods, its stocks of ingredients scattered all over the place. As the jeepney cleared the gate, Ronald glanced back one last time at the village he was about to leave for a still indefinite period. He and his family would be staying for now with his in-laws in Caloocan City. But the harrowing images of destruction in and around his home village did not faze him. Ronald remains certain of one thing: “I love Marikina Provident and I want to go back."
- GMANews.TV 
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