In the Philippines, we live with storms the way other countries live with seasons. We know the difference between amihan and habagat, between the dry gust that lingers and the southwest monsoon that soaks everything in its path. We are fluent in storm jargons. Ask any taxi driver, “May bagyo kaya, Kuya?” and he’ll answer like a weather forecaster: “Low pressure lang po, Ma’am.” We can read the storm signals from the dag-im, the sudden darkening of the sky.
Even as children, we were trained to notice. In elementary school, we listened for the number codes from PAGASA: Signal Number 3 meant no classes, storm conditions were serious. These days, the warnings are color-coded instead. “Orange” now signals intense rainfall rather than strong winds, a shift born from the hard lessons of Typhoon Ondoy, when rainfall, not wind, was the greater danger.
Everyone Has a Flood Story
No matter which island we call home, flooding has become part of our national memory.
Back home in Batangas, floodwaters used to stroll down from Capitolio and P. Burgos Highway, pooling in Vergara Street like water in a basin. But even before the rains arrived, Inay was already prepared for the onslaught. Inside our two-story, 54-square-meter apartment, she assembled a stack of rags, the masitera tied with ropes so the pots wouldn’t topple and spill sand and leaves, and a neat stack of repurposed plastic, old shower curtains, packaging sheets, kept only for the rainy season. With clips and cords, she could fold and fasten these into makeshift windbreakers for the terrace. By the time the first drops fell, our space was secure.
Housekeeper
After I left full-time editing, I converted our upstairs bedroom into my home office, a compact world of organized chaos: my PC and server, stacks of paper files, a revolving chair, family photos glued to the wall, a rif-raf organizer hanging on the closet door, and bursts of color to carry me through deadlines.
At my narra desk, my back pressed against a wall of filing cabinets and seven-tier bookshelves, I often worked to the rhythm of Inay’s cleaning. She rolled steadily across the linoleum floor, dusting, waxing, rearranging her rags. We fought about it more times than I can count. “I can’t write with all this scrubbing, with that strong wax smell,” I’d protest. But she never stopped. She could walk barefoot and detect dust with uncanny sensitivity. “Marumi ’pag makati,” she’d say. You know it’s dirty when your feet itch. And she would never allow that, not on her floors, not under her watch.
That Floating Box of Rags
Inay had what I once thought was a strange obsession with rags. She kept them in a box near the stairs, not just scraps of cloth but cut squares from old kamiseta, sorted and folded with military precision. Each had a purpose: rags for the floor, the shelves, the wooden stairs, the jalousies, the ref, the stove, the sink. Some were for wet use, others strictly dry. It was a whole taxonomy of cloth, lined neatly in a box wrapped with plastic.
Then one day the rains fell hard, and floodwaters crept up from the street into our home.
I woke barefoot into water and froze in wonder. The water was crystal clear. No floating debris. No dead insects. No film of dirt. Even the rag box had lifted gently, bobbing like a small life raft, its contents untouched. The corners of the house Inay waxed every morning while I groaned stood free of cockroaches, free of mice, free of drifting plastic. The flood came in. The waters stayed clear.
Every Corner Had a System
In Filipino households, we often speak of mothers as self-sacrificing, but rarely do we honor their operational brilliance. Inay didn’t just maintain a home, she managed risk. Her plastic-lined rag box, her rotation of cleaning zones, even the precise placement of furniture in our tight space, none of it was random.
My mother’s flood-preparedness showed an instinctive affinity with the weather. Inside the house, she walked barefoot, reading the floor like a barometer. Even pests were discouraged, driven out of the corners she kept dustless. Every wiped surface, every folded rag, every organized tool was foresight, her way of staying one step ahead of disruption.
During the flood, I looked down at my toes beneath the clear surface and thought it felt like drinking water: parang tubig-tabang. As I scooped with a pail, I realized how calm I was, while outside the house, panic raged.
What I Took With Me
Inay has gone on to that eternal quiet, with no one left to argue with her about floor wax. I now live in a condo, safely above flood level. Yet her habits remain with me. I still sort my rags by task: toweling, cut-up t-shirts, recycled shorts, folding and stacking them under a hanger basket, seams aligned. Because Inay couldn’t stand a rag tossed into the wrong corner, neither can I. I test the tiles with my bare feet, feeling for grit. I schedule my cleaning days by zone.
Her habits became my disciplines. And even now, the memory of the plainest things, a box of dry rags floating steady in a flood so clear, can make me pause and marvel.
