Hello, monsoon.

As of this writing. Image from NOAA. 

As we are a tropical country, we only have two seasons in a year: the wet and dry season.

The thing is, whichever season we are in, we always have it in extremes. When it’s summer, the average temperature can go as high as 40°C (104°F) and when it’s the rainy season, expect to have heavy raining and flooding.

It had been raining for days now and that means commuting to and from work can be quite a pain.

Make no mistake, torrential raining affects all demographics. If you own a car (which you may subject to extensive damage due to floodwaters), you’d likely find yourself trapped in heavy traffic. If you’re like most of us who don’t enjoy the comfort of own transportation, then it’s even harder.

There’s no guaranteed way around it for regular commuters like me. Most public transport becomes unreliable as soon as it rains. You can either walk or try booking Grab but expect a ridiculous surge in fares (that is if you’re lucky enough to even get a driver to accept your booking). If the high fare is not an option, then there’s no choice but to toughen yourself up, leave your arte and poise somewhere if you want to get to where you needed to be.

I can rival any NBA player when it comes to “boxing out” just to catch a ride home. I can also be like any tightrope walker balancing myself while walking on the raised curb of an island when roads are flooded. In a few instances, I’d be hanging on to jeepney rails because there are no more vacant seats inside. I tell you, nothing else can channel my inner Lara Croft than commuting on a rainy day in the Metro.

Oh, did I tell you that chivalry is absolutely dead at times like this? If you don’t assert yourself well enough, guys can shove, knock or elbow you. That’s when my trusty umbrella comes in handy and my taller-than-average-Filipina height an advantage.

I can probably make a compilation of my many rainy day (mis)adventures. There had been rare times it pushed me to my breaking point (I blame my hormones) but mostly, I choose to laugh it off and charge it to experience. It pays to be “madiskarte” (street-smart) and well-aware and adapted in difficult situations. I guess it’s just one of the many things a single girl like me can acquire in time, knowing there’s no one to rescue her when things go awful.

One thing’s for sure—if this ever turns to be a plot of a Roland Emmerich movie, I think I can survive it.

Over the years of working in a flood-prone business district of Makati City, I got so used to flooding that it’s almost like I developed a skill to adapt to it. Why not? — an hour of heavy rains can easily transform Buendia Avenue and surrounding areas of Washington, Pasong Tamo and Dela Rosa streets to a body of water that would leave people and motorists wet, stranded and utterly frustrated.

It’s good they came up with elevated walkways (such as the Dela Rosa walkway) as this can serve thousands of pedestrians in a day by protecting them from the sun but more importantly, from rain and flood.

When there are heavy rains and I had to go home from a day in the office, I use the Dela Rosa walkway and walk towards MRT Ayala Station where there won’t be flooding and where I can get a ride home via the Park Square terminal. Waiting in long lines for a ride is one thing, getting stranded inside the jeepney due to traffic is another story. But at least I didn’t have to walk through ankle-deep water which I’d probably do if I pass by my regular route towards Washington St.

The thing about the monsoon season in the Philippines is that it’s just started. In a country that averages 20 typhoons in a year, we aren’t even in the middle of it. Remember that the strongest typhoons in our country’s history happened in the last few months of the year (Ondoy happened in September 2009 and Yolanda in November 2013), so while we all hope that our typhoons this year is not as strong as the ones I’ve mentioned, we are still bracing ourselves for the worst.

Expect now to see more of me entering our very posh office building in tsinelas (and just like those cult B actresses in the '70s—“wet-look”), since the suspension of work due to inclement weather is not the usual practice in the industry I am in. Business continuity is critical so we are expected to come to work and conduct a ‘business as usual’ mindset even when it’s already rainmageddon outside.