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And Yes We Are Ready For Another Ondoy..

Before I wrote this, I go through my post about ondoy and our experiences. It was not that bad after all. Two days without food and yet we survived. Days of cleaning, weeks of creating a new home. Months of recovering financially and almost a year of erasing our fears. But we survived, that’s all that matters. Maybe during that time it felt like the world has forgotten us. How can we not think that way? We only see water and fear (from our eyes and from the neighbors). There was no electricity, there was no news and the thought that our family was worried for our safety hunts us. But then again we survived and it has been exactly a year since it happened. We’re still here, we’re still living.

September 26, 2009. A day that will always be remembered in our history. It was Ondoy’s day. It was the day when nature pull us all back to Earth. And now one year after, are we Ondoy safe?

I had a glimpse of Boy Abunda’s The Bottom Line. He asked DSWD Secretary if the department is ready in case another Ondoy happened. And the secretary said yes. So I guess it is safe to assume that our government did not make sure that there will never be another Ondoy. So what did they exactly do? Buy over priced rubber boats? Prepare sacks of rice to be distributed in case of another flood?

“We are ready for an Ondoy part two. I am responsible. I am accountable. They just have to follow me,” said Ramos, a former commander of the Army’s elite forces (inquirer.net)

“We are ready for a [Tropical Storm] ‘Ondoy’ part two,” said Benito Ramos, executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

See what I mean? They are ready, in fact we are ready too. We are ready for Ondoy part 2. Yes they are expecting another Ondoy but why should we expect if we can do something so that it would not happen again. It would have been better if it is:

We are not ready for another Ondoy, because there will never be another Ondy. We already took care of your sewerage, esteros and flood ways. We already took action to prevent another flood. We are not ready because there is nothing to prepare for.

Wouldn’t you love to hear that from our government?

But of course knowing how they always twist the truth, we still cannot expect that our government is ready for another Ondoy. I just wish, nature will understand, our president is new and he just came from another crisis (hosatge crises with a twisted truth). And another crisis will be too much for him.

The funny thing about Ondoy was some people really took advantage of it. Yeah, like rescuing her leading lady in a speed boat. Nice move. nice movie gimmick. still it was a flop. Just like our urban planning, flop, nothing more, nothing less.

What You Need To Know About Dengue

It never occurred to me that I will post something about this. I was never concerned, there was no reported case here. That changes all when I heard that 5 or 6 of our neighbors suffered from dengue fever. Good thing that none of them died.

Let us start by define what Dengue Fever is and where it come from.

What is Dengue Fever?

Dengue fever is is an acute infectious disease manifested initially with fever. This is transmitted by the bite of an Aedes mosquito. Now you must know that not because an Aedes mosquito bites you, you will have dengue. Aedes mosquito that are infected with any dengue virus is the one that transmit dengue fever.

What are the symptoms of dengue fever?

The main symptom of dengue fever is mild fever to high fever. Now this can be confusing as almost all infections had the same symptoms. Just remember that dengue fever is also accompanied by muscle and joints pain, rashes, severe head ache and pain in the eye. High fever can range from 39 degrees Celsius up. Although you still have to depend your observation on your child’s normal temperature.

Here are other symptoms of dengue fever: Nose bleeding when fever starts to subside, abdominal pain, vomiting of coffee-colored matter and dark-colored stools.

Just keep in my mind that when a person is suffering from fever for three days and is showing signs of fatigue, bring them to the nearest hospital for diagnosis.

How is Dengue Fever diagnosed?

The diagnosis of dengue is usually made clinically. The classic picture is high fever with no localising source of infection, a rash with thrombocytopenia and relative leukopenia – low platelet and white blood cell count. Dengue infection can affect many organs and thus may present unusually as liver dysfunction, renal impairment, meningo-encephalitis or gastroenteritis. (wikipedia)

Usually a patient is taken a blood sample to see the platelet count.

How To Treat Dengue

There is no immunization for dengue virus. A patient can suffer dengue more than once too. for mild dengue case, the patient can take paracetamol but not aspirin and non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs (like Ibufropen) as this drugs may worsen the bleeding.

Oral re hydration should be included on the treatment. This can be treated by consuming more liquid and juices but in some cases, hydration with intravenous fluid in a hospital is needed.

Platelet count should also be monitored and observe the patient for progression into dengue hemorrhagic fever.

There Is A Baby In The Trash

The news about babies being abondend by mothers are very saddening. I thought news programs should stop broadcasting things like that. Think of it, it just encourage other moms to leave and abandon their babies. You can imagine how they would think when they see a news about abandoning their babies. They would think that since someone have done it, it’s not that difficult to leave a baby. But then again, if this kind of news are not brought to public awareness, how will we know that these kind of activities are rampant. How will our policy maker knows they need to act about this?

And with that, I will no longer condemn news stations for bringing up news like this. We need to know. And we need to act. The government should act. For one, they should sought the root cause of this. Why mothers will come to a point of leaving their babies behind? Is it lack of support? Economic support? Shame? They also need to strengthen their program with regards to women, their rights and their protection.

I am telling that it is the government’s fault why some mothers resorted to that kind of action. Each one is responsible for their action, but then again, we cannot deny the fact that the most reason why moms would do such a thing is due to poverty.