Unos, Dos, Tres

“Walang tubig, walang pagkain, eh di sumayaw na lang tayo!”

While the whole of Metro Manila was reeling from floodwaters of biblical proportions, I was at Juice Bar in Boracay dancing to “Fire On The Dance Floor” and “Calle Ocho”. Earlier that afternoon I was online and the tweets and Facebook status updates all echoed the same frantic sentiment: Metro Manila was on its way to becoming a disaster area of Atlantic proportions. And though I was calling and texting the people at home, the only replies I got were a busy signal and a “Network busy, try again?” on my phone.

Did any bit of guilt creep into my heart that night? Did I stop to think, how callous of me to be out partying while people back home are drowning?

True, I was worried about the situation at home; earlier in the morning my mom told me the water in the garage was inches away from invading our living room. Given that the rains hadn’t stopped, I was resigned to the inevitable that our house was already flooded by the afternoon. Plus there was no way for me to go home and be with my family. I realized I was at that point when things were beyond me, and I could only accept that which I couldn’t control.

I could only say so many silent prayers for the safety of my loved ones. I could only beseech Mother Nature to let up her fury. I could only tweet my wish that Ororo Munroe would use her Storm powers to drive the storm away.

“Walang tubig, walang pagkain, eh di sumayaw na lang tayo!”

In Joey Gosengfiao’s classic Temptation Island, four beauty queen contestants, supposedly the epitome of grace and civilized behavior, find themselves trapped and helpless in a desert island. Because of hunger and thirst, they are reduced to tearing panties off unwilling donors (to use as net to catch fish) and hallucinating huge ice cream cones and fried chicken on the desert sand.

In one classic scene, the girls had only a cassette recorder (owned by the maid, who else?) playing Giorgio Moroder’s “What A Night!” Faced with the inevitable, they had no choice but to assess what they had and act accordingly.

“Walang tubig, walang pagkain, eh di sumayaw na lang tayo!”

It was inevitable I’d end up dancing that Saturday night. “One, two three, four, uno, dos, tres, quatro… I know you want me, you know I want ‘cha!”

And unlike in the movie, we didn’t end up in a catfight.