Dude, where's my earthquake?

Earlier this week, a flurry of emails and text messages sent many people scurrying home before 5pm in fear of a huge earthquake that was supposed to affect Manila and Quezon City.

On the day of The Big One, I was up in Palma Hall screaming my tonsils out at students who must be from the mollusk side of evolution--they have brought along their involved parents and extended families to terrorize the registration people roughly half their age. When that particular hell blew over, went over to the shopping center to assist Yummy pick his tofu. At the cash counter, I vaguely overheard the manangs talking about some earthquake. But dense as I was, I didn't pay much attention to it until I read this blog entry from 1one2two, who vaguely reminds me of some Taiwanese boy band.

Here's a portion of the email warning us of forthcoming doom:

A FRIEND OF HERS WITH A PSYCHIC POWER INFORMED HER OF A FORTHCOMING DISASTER THAT WILL GREATLY AFFECT MANILA AND QUEZON CITY. THIS PERSON SAW THE EARTHQUAKE IN JAPAN BEFORE IT HAPPENED. MY FRIEND KNEW THAT I RESIDE IN MANILA SO SHE WARNED ME TO LEAVE MANILA SOMETIME BETWEEN THE 2ND AND 3RD WEEK OF APRIL. SHE SAID WATER WILL DESTROY THE CITY AND WILL DAMAGE THE FUEL DEPO IN MANILA THAT WILL EVENTUALLY CREATE A SEA OF FIRE. SO MANY LIVES WILL BE AT STAKE.

Now, I'm no huge fan of divination; although I will admit to being scared silly when "The Man Who Saw Tomorrow" was shown on television when I was a kid and everyone was saying that Saddam Hussein was the antichrist. It seemed plausible at the time, given that we just had this really monstrously powerful earthquake and waking up to find ash from Pinatubo on your backyard and realizing that no, it's not snow. (I believe Patricia Evangelista would have been delighted and then devastated by that, but hey.) I was studying in a Catholic school and all the nuns had us kneeling and praying all the time, and the favorite recess conversation was happenings in the Book of Revelation. I was like, what, all of ten years old?

That seemed like a lifetime ago. They also said the world was going to end with Y2K, and guess where we are right now. If the world is going to end, what else can we do? In the meantime, we have these predictions and although, again, it seems a bit plausible. People believed it. But I don't think I'd be having home before 5 especially if you note the part where the gas depot lights up and turns into a sea of fire. I can see the huge batteries of diesel and unleadeds from my window for chrissakes! If you climb up some more, I'd say you can see Manila Bay. Where do I go then to hide out the passing of the Apocalypse?