4.9 Magnitude Earthquake Hits Mindoro, Philippines on April 8, 2014

April 8, 2014 , 1:18 a.m. Philippine Standard Time

The technical details

A 4.9-magnitude earthquake (according to earthquake-report.com) hit the Mindoro Provinces in the Philippines at around 1:18 a.m. Philippine Standard Time today, April 8, 2014.

The earthquake lasted for only a few seconds, approximately no more than 5 seconds. It was moderate and short, but was sharp.

As illustrated in the map of Mindoro below, the epicenter of the earthquake is near the municipality of Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro with a depth (Hypocenter) or radius of 10 km. (The town's name "Sablayan" was hidden in the picture when the coordinates appeared.)

Earthquake preparedness guide

We've all witnessed terrible aftermaths of earthquakes. While the phenomenon itself may not be avoided, we can definitely avoid or reduce the risk of injuries and damages by following an earthquake preparedness guide. A simple rule of thumb is to drop, cover and hold on. Check out ready.gov for information on what to do before, during and after an earthquake.


My personal experience of the earthquake

I live in the town of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro but I felt the sharp shake. When this earthquake happened, my kids were sleeping in the same room. I was browsing the internet and doing my social networking routine when I suddenly heard the window pane shattering, felt the ground shaking and saw my sister's doll display case move a bit.

This is the display rack in our room and the doll display case I was talking about. It was a scary thought that it was going to fall. Our room is only about 4x3 sq. meters so everything will definitely fall over to us.

While the ground was shaking, I felt blood rushing to my head, my hands shaking, my heart beating ten times faster and my whole body cold. I can hear our neighbor's dogs barking all of a sudden. I immediately picked up my baby and sat down beside my son, panicking and trying to think about what to do in case the earthquake doesn't stop immediately, or if the display rack and everything else tips over to us.

Thank God it was over in a few seconds. However, I still couldn't stand up due to fear of what happened and fear of an immediate aftershock.

I grabbed my phone, and you can probably guess what I did first. Yup, I posted a Facebook status update. But believe me, it being a fad wasn't the reason. I just wanted to immediately tell someone about the earthquake and maybe ask for sympathy, help, guidance, or spot someone else post the same status (and I did) - whatever I can gain to calm down since I was too afraid to stand up to walk over to the next room where my cousin and his wife sleep, or to my parents' bijou hut ("kubo") outside to tell them about what happened, in case they didn't know yet. I wasn't able to top up my phone for prepaid credits but it was Wi-Fi connected so I sent a text message thru Chikka to my parents, asking them if they felt the quake and telling them I was too scared to leave our room.

I was still feeling dizzy, or maybe the ground was still shaking a bit when my mother opened the door to our room. She said she didn't initially feel the earthquake but was feeling the ground still shaking a bit while asking about what happened. My mother said the rack was hooked to the wall so it was quite secure, but said we should move the display case just to be safe.

My realizations

I know it was just a moderate earthquake, but it was a near-death experience.

The summary of all my poor decisions, mistakes, sins and everything I have so wrongfully done all flashed before my eyes. I felt the greatest fear I have never felt before of losing my family, my kids (Oh I hate typing that!!!).

I realized everything can be taken away from us in an instant, whether we like it or not. I realized that this life is indeed only borrowed and that we must live it to the fullest and according to God's will. I was afraid that my kids and my family would suffer from injuries or who knows what. I have so much more I want to give to and do for them. 

It scared the hell out of me, literally. I was scared of death and hell. It was as if my mind constantly kept saying "repent, repent, repent..." I remember a dear friend saying she is not afraid of death; she knows where she is headed to come judgment day. I now realize she was spot on. I was afraid to die as I feel I'm going to hell (Oh I hate that again!!).

I want to pour my whole heart out in this post but it would take ages to finish it. But these are for sure: The incident somehow renewed my heart and mind. From now on, putting off for tomorrow what I can do today is out of my vocabulary. I will find and create time for everything. There will be no more excuses of not living this God-given life to the fullest.


P.S.
I lied down for a few minutes before posting this and I still felt the ground shaking. Or maybe it was just my heart pounding.

The Made-up Model Divergence

Sometime in 2001:

I stare into the freedom park thinking why the hell everyone I knew who could help me is nowhere to be found. I literally have zero, not even a peso or two to make a payphone call to my mother's office phone in our province, which I'm not doing anyway. How am I supposed to explain how a 7-day allowance goes kaput in less than two days? Yup, strr-raight into the mIRC sinkhole of addiction.

To my relief, Jen, my roommate, arrives from her P.E. class. I make a lame sales pitch (I've never been good with that), intending to segue into borrowing some money so I could at least make it through until my mother gives me my allowance in a few days. 

Jen, the egghead, then comes up with this obvious solution of letting me use her cellphone, a Nokia 3210, to contact my mother. Great! Suddenly, contacting my mother becomes the least of my problem.

Why?

Because I don't know how to use a freaking cellphone!

I mean, the only cellphone I was able to use was that big ass monochrome Nokia phone back in the late 90s. Everything else after that is nothing but a dream to me.

I panic, bombarding my head to bleed some bright and plausible excuse to cover my unacceptable ignorance. I have got to pretend I'm up-to-date.

I think of it now and I could have said, "Oh, I lost my mother's number" or "There's a blackout situation in my poor hometown and power won't be up 'til Monday (which is when my mother will send my allowance)" or "Aargh! Great timing! I think I have to take a dump."

But no. Instead, some half-baked brain cell escapes from the prison of these-are-dumb-ideas and decides to betray me by feeding me with a lethal alibi.

But it was too late to refuse. I find myself declaring what was probably going to be the most epic excuse I have ever made.

"Ay Jen, sorry ha. Hindi kasi ako marunong gumamit ng 3210...

...3310 kasi ung cellphone namin." ("Oh sorry, I don't know how to use a 3210 'coz our phone's a 3310.")

Thank God she believed me.

Or so I thought.

Paper Sauce

I was in our office cafeteria for my lunch break. I scanned through the meal choices in the food warmer and spotted a rarely served sumptuous fish fillet in a nicely colored sauce. I asked the food attendant what the sauce was, and he politely said "Paper sauce, ma'am." I candidly, innocently, and without any sarcasm said, "Ah, ok." while thinking hard about what it tastes like.

Then it dawned on me, and boy was I really going to burst into laughter at that time.

Pepper sauce.

One by one, let me be gone.

Minesweeper was the game I have always played in the late 90s, but have never really understood or paid attention to how it works until about 5 years later.

I started using computers when I was in high school. It was the time when Windows (whatever the version was) seemed like a matrix to me. I'd panic and literally lose my breath whenever I accidentally clicked on the minimize button, thinking that I was screwed because the whole system was going to crash or that someone had lost his/her work forever upon losing the window in sight. Whenever that happened, I'd rush back to my mother's office just adjacent to the library where the computers were and swore to never admit that I was the one who screwed the system.

No one has ever confronted me, nor have I heard any complaints about the minimized windows.

Fast-forward to my college days in 2001. It was then that I discovered chat platforms like Yahoo Chat, ICQ and mIRC. I am a fast-learner (I know, i know, this is an overused term), and I actually learned most of what I know on my own.

I met my first boyfriend, V.R. thru Yahoo Chat. We chatted for about a month before we decided to meet up and make it official. I was turning 17, while he was 32, but he initially claimed he was 27, so one could say he definitely knew a lot.

I was at my favorite internet cafe one time when he sent me his picture thru the chat program and I immediately thought, "This man is definitely not 27." But, whatever. He was my first boyfriend, and he was 32 for effs sake, so I was easily talked into the relationship. (Well, I did have a "boyfriend" when I was 12 but it only came as far as stuffed toys, chocolates, teeny-weeny phone calls and sweet talks while I was playing hard to get. There was really no "We're together now" moment.)

V.R. wasn't really good looking, but looked tall in the picture, although he was really only 5 ft. 'tall' in person. Apparently, he requested for my picture, too. I eagerly succumbed. I was confident anyway because I knew I would be a pretty sight to him. He told me to scan the picture and send it to him online. No problem!

"A picture, a picture..." I murmured. Aha! I knew I had one in my wallet, so I hurriedly searched for it and found my 1x1 ID picture.

"He'd definitely go nuts when he sees this picture!"

Holding the photo, I called on the internet shop attendant to ask for assistance in sending the picture to my boyfriend because it was my first time to do it.

The attendant was very polite and accommodating. It was their shop's marketing campaign anyway: Free tutorial and assistance.

He advised me to scan the picture first. So, I told him, "Yeah, I know. So I should put it here, right?"

Then came the look on his face.

Flabbergasted. Confused. Trying so hard to hide his amusement.

...
..
.

I was inserting my 1x1 ID picture in the floppy drive.



Prologue

A week later, I found myself in the same shop asking how much a hard drive is.

That same look on the attendant's face.

I told them I was referring to a 3 1/2 in. floppy disk, because the 5 1/4 in. was THE soft disk.

The Change

Greenbelt, Makati is one of my favorites to hang out in, and my favorite spot there is Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Gawwd I love their English Breakfast Tea. I am a tea addict, which actually got me hospitalized one time. But that’s a different story, and I promise to write about that one day.

My friend and I was at Greenbelt one time. I was a smoker, you see. Marlboro Lights was my brand, although I have tasted the likes of Marlboro Black, Green and Red, DJ Mix (which gave me headaches every time), Capri (which I think is really classy, but felt like smoking a roll of paper with paper fillings), Gudang Garam (out of curiosity due to the myth, or fact, that it contains weed, which I later postulated actually contains chocolate. If you know what I mean.), Lucky Strike (paper), Winston (Marlboro-wannabe for me), Fortune Red (<insert vomiting sound effect>), and a single and only hit of weed which made me throw up VERY VERY badly. Won’t try that again.

BTW, this is not the story of me quitting smoking.

Anyway, I guess I didn’t have any stash of cigarettes then, because we headed to the 2nd (or 3rd) floor to buy some from a cigarette stand. It’s a nice stall because they also sell e-cigars, cool cigarette cases and lighters, and other accessories one would need to support his/her advocacy of lung cancer.

I think I bought 2 packs. I always liked to have some reserve because when I’m at my apartment, I get too lazy to go out just to buy from a nearby sari-sari store (a small variety store). One reason was there was always some ongoing construction in the area, but that wasn’t my concern. I was always bothered by (and I’m not generalizing) the construction workers whistling and saying, “Hi, miss!” or “Ganda naman!"("What a pretty sight!") or the worst “Ang laki!" ("How big!") (You know what that means.) It got to the point where instead of ignoring them, I would look straight to them and give them the finger. Lucky I didn’t get retaliating responses.

Anyhow. If I remember it correctly, a pack of Marlboro Lights from that stall costs… oh wait. I couldn’t remember. LOL. All the same, I was owed a change of P3.00. Oh… Well then now I remember a pack costed P47, and that I actually only bought a pack that instance. But I always liked to have some reserve! Oh, forget it. What matters is I was still owed a change of P3.00.

There were 2 salesladies at that stall. There were also 2 jars of candies sitting on their “office” table. To my surprise, the saleslady I transacted with asked me, “Ate, pwede bang kendi nalang yung sukli?” (“Can I just give you candies for your change?”)

Flashback to somewhere in the past, when my mother told me about her colleague (Let's name her Teacher Candy.) who paid some groceries with candies. Yup, you guessed that right. Apparently, Teacher Candy purposely kept all the "candy change" she got from the same grocery store so that when the time comes that she has an ample "amount", she swore she'd go back to the store to use the candies as payment.

It couldn't have been a bad day because my friend and I were there to enjoy and relax. It was really all out of principle. A contention. A resolve. So I answered, VERY VERY agitatedly, “So ‘pag bumili ulit ako dito sa susunod, pwede ko ding ipambayad yung kendi?” (“So if I buy from you again, can I also use the candies to pay you?”)

You can imagine my facial expression when I said those words, and perhaps you can also picture the look on that saleslady’s face. It was as if she was totally shocked that I dissented from the majority who probably only nodded just to get it over with. I’m guessing I was the first to protest.

Make what you will of this, but I will reiterate: It was out of principle.

The saleslady then gave me three one-peso coins.