Waiting means caring; wait what?!

Think of these everyday scenarios when rain pours in the heart of the Philippines. In Metro Manila, this has become a familiar situation. Imagine, and I say this with emphasis, this is only the habagat. Come on, these are not even the strongest typhoons, nor the big one (earthquake).

Oolala…I could only think of how much worse it would be when the strongest disasters hit the Philippines. When? Well, your guess is as good as mine.

We have seen it year after year — the overflowing rivers, the flooded roads, the submerged communities. And somehow it seems that it no longer surprises us — we have managed to live with it.

Resilience? Yes, perhaps. That has always been our Filipino term of endearment for this longstanding problem. We’re all so sweet we cannot call it what it really is, hello? The lack of accountability and the inability to provide long-term solutions. There’s just nowhere else for the water to go, there are fewer trees left to hold it, fewer natural spaces to absorb it, and so the water goes directly into the homes of our countrymen.

Poor us (yes, no one is excused). What should have been an occasional inconvenience has become a recurring disruption to everyday life.

Here’s the thing: when the rain pours, we learn to wait.

We do what we can to save our appliances from getting soaked as we wait for the waters to subside. We wait for announcements, for trip cancellations, work suspensions, even evacuation alerts. We postpone. We cancel. We have no choice but to wait.

Life suddenly takes a pause. We watch the news. We cook champorado, sopas, something hot to keep us warm. We study for exams. We read. We learn during the lull. We spend more time at home, something we do not normally get to do during work or school days.

We think about what matters most, we think about the present, and again, we wait.

The same lesson is slowly becoming more evident when it comes to traveling by sea. One good thing to highlight is that, before, passengers would have made their way to the port with their tickets in hand, only to find out that their voyage had been canceled or delayed because of the bad weather. Some would spend hours waiting in passenger terminals. They would sleep in chairs, anxious and frustrated, simply because they had nowhere else to go, they had committed to their journey.

But perhaps we are learning; passengers are now better informed. A ticket does not always mean a vessel will sail. When the sea is rough and the weather is unsafe, passengers are now making the right decision and the simplest one: do not go to the port until the trip has been confirmed.

For the longest time, the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) has been trying to communicate this through public announcements, social media posts, and the cooperation of shipping lines that send text and email advisories to passengers on the status of their trips during inclement weather. This small change in behavior can make the biggest difference.

Now, fewer passengers are stranded at the terminals. From thousands before, the number can now be counted in two digits, which means fewer people are exposed unnecessarily to the inconvenience, uncertainty, and risks brought by severe weather.

For PPA, a canceled trip is not the end of its responsibility. In fact, it is when coordination and preparedness matter most.

As the effects of the southwest monsoon, or habagat, continue following a series of storms, PPA has intensified the coordination among its Port Management Offices, shipping lines, terminal operators, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and local governments.

The directive given by PPA general manager Jay Santiago is clear: make sure people are safe, and make sure employees are not left on their own.

At the Port of Lucena, for instance, passengers temporarily staying at the Passenger Terminal Building received ready-to-eat food packs through the PMO Marinduque/Quezon and DSWD. Shipping lines also stepped in and provided hot meals. These may seem like small gestures in the face of a massive storm, but for someone who has been waiting for hours, a meal, a clear announcement, or simply knowing that someone is looking after them can mean a great deal.

Even as storms disrupt travel, PPA employees continue reporting for duty, monitoring operations, and assisting passengers. It is only fitting then that the agency also looks after them.

Hence, the PPA recently expanded healthcare access to 2,092 employees, including regular and contract service personnel and qualified dependents, through a nationwide HMO network. Preventive programs such as annual medical exams and bloodletting further reinforce the message that the people who keep the ports moving must also be cared for.

Congratulations to the PPA HRMD team and PANTALAN for this important initiative. Because whether it is a passenger waiting for a vessel, a family waiting for the floodwaters to subside, or an employee keeping operations running in the middle of a storm, the lesson is essentially the same: Sometimes, moving forward is knowing when to stop.

We cannot always control the weather, but we can always pause, think, control our actions, and care for one another while we wait for sunnier days.

Because, in the end, we are all in the same boat!