There should be no equivocation about it: The government was not prepared to meet the challenge of nature as it unleashed tropical storm “Ondoy.”

Not only that the typhoon swept through Metro Manila and various parts of the country by surprise, it hit its targeted places with tons of floodwaters unprecedented in recent memory.

Of course, the threat of the succeeding typhoon “Pepeng” had somehow been mitigated by what the government called preempted evacuation in particularly low-lying areas in some regions of the country.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council reported that for the first time in the history of this, our storm-tossed country, the government conducted preempted evacuation of people living in flood-prone areas.

The NDCC estimated some 30,000 families had been evacuated by government troops deployed in such surroundings, particularly in Regions 1,2, 4A, and 5.

Maybe so, but President Gloria Arroyo was obviously unimpressed. At the NDCC meeting the other day, the president bewailed the toll of human lives and the hardships that people endured during the height of tropical storms “Ondoy and “Pepeng”.

The president’s sorrow was visibly etched – and deeply – in her face as she listened to reports on the typhoons, as shown in the accompanying news photos.

In another show of concern, President Arroyo ordered the immedite cleanup of Metro Manila, specifying a 72-hour time frame within which to carry out her directive.

She directed Metropolitan Manila Development Authority Chairman Bayani Fernando to coordinate with local government authorities to undertake a massive drive, with emphasis on the piles of garbage on city streets.

But Fernando, while expressing eagerness in complying with the president’s deadline, has said it might take more than a month to totally clean up the mess caused by “Ondoy” as a lot of areas in the metropolis remain submerged in floodwaters.

And as if it were not enough, the heavy rains the other night brought down by typhoon “Pepeng” produced waist-level floods in major streets in Metro Manila.

Luckily, US military personnel from the Joint Special Operations Task Force stationed in Zamboanga rushed to Manila with its rubber Zudiac boats and assisted in the rescue operations launched by the Armed Forces of the Philippines in coordination with other government agencies.

Well, despite all these, a lot of things remain to be done to alleviate human sufferings spawned by the typhoons.

In our own case as we mentioned in this space earlier, we escaped from the onrushing floodwaters through the roof leaving our house submerged up to the second floor. When we went back the following day the whole family was speechless in total dismay: Everything was in morbid disarray with mud all over covering all the precious things we have collected in our lifetime.

Our experience, I am sure, is shared by the thousand others from all walks of life from all over where “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” unleashed their fury without mercy.

But that’s life – what else can you say?

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)