Try saying the title of this post really fast, at least five times. Yes, witness the birth of a Muscat tongue twister.

Cyclone Phet was first announced to be heading towards Oman last Wednesday, 2nd June, early in the day. There were whispers all around that this was going to be another Gonu. Fear was palpable in the air.

On Thursday, strong winds and significantly lower temperatures could be felt in Muscat. The skies were cloudy. A few drizzles here and there took place all over the capital city. Winds picked up speed early in the evening.

People started panicking around sundown, when practically everyone ran off to the nearest grocery store or foodstuff shop to stock up on essential provisions. Bread was on top of the list, it seems, as Muscat Bakery in my neighborhood had to produce their loaves and rotis triple time and seal these up in jumbo plastic packages for mass consumption.

Oman’s National Disaster Committee sent out advisories to residents via SMS, through the various telecommunication providers. The messages, in Arabic and English, advised people to exercise extreme caution and stay away from wadis (dry river beds) and the sea coast. Contact information of search and rescue services was likewise given.

Rainfall finally came at 11:00 PM, first in trickling drops, then steadily streaming showers. Heavier and thicker rains came at 1:00 AM Friday, 4th June, which lasted throughout the early morning hours.

Flood waters started rising then, quickly filling up the local wadis and spilling onto residential/commercial districts and access roads. Qurum, Ruwi and Azaiba were among the major districts to get flooded over.

Here are pictures of the Darsait and Ruwi areas around noontime Friday, taken by Oman-based blogger and journalist Kishor Cariappa. These roads are major thoroughfares, now overflowing with water.

Noora Al Meer has also shared two pictures of large streams of water rushing down the mountains surrounding Al Khuwair district. Since Muscat has very poor drainage systems, the water will simply spread itself over the cityscape and await for merciful evaporation once the sun comes up.

Here is a photo and a video of rain water completely filling up the wadi beside Qurum CCC and Sabco Center. The overflow will go directly into the surrounding business establishments, which have just recovered construction and profit-wise from Gonu.

Phet has already caused several fatalities in the Sultanate. As of today, 12 lives are reported to have been taken in the fury of the cyclone, consisting of nine Omanis and three expatriates. A few people have also gone missing in the wadis.

I woke up to a comparatively dry and sunny Saturday, a far cry from yesterday’s dark and wet weather. The only obvious sign of yesterday’s natural debacle was the floodwater spread out all over Muscat. The government has declared June 5th as a public holiday, saving most of us the trouble of fighting our way through the post-cyclone muck.

There are rumors circulating in the Internet that Phet is poised to deliver a second blow to the Sultanate. However, the cyclone seems to be headed towards Pakistan and is predicted to hit the Karachi area.

It is official.

At exactly 3.18 A.M., Philippine time (GMT+8), 1st August 2009, former Philippine president Corazon “Cory” Aquino was proclaimed to have passed away from a cardio-respiratory arrest. She was 76.

Cory was hospitalized several weeks ago due to the fast-advancing state of her colon cancer illness. She was first diagnosed of this last year, 24th May.

Her only son, Senator Noynoy Aquino, just made a statement over international television (through The Filipino Channel in this part of the world) that his mother has joined her Creator. The Aquino family asked for some time before they would face the world later today to answer pressing questions from the media at around 11:00 AM Philippine time.

Over the past few days, the only reports that trickled out of the Makati Medical Center was that Cory’s condition was “stable.” Nothing more specific was disclosed until very early this morning.

Rest in peace, Cory. You will finally be able to join Ninoy, our hero and your love, in Paradise.

I just heard over the news that the Filipino nurse reported to have carried swine flu into Saudi Arabia has fully recovered from the illness and has even gone back to work at the King Faisal hospital in Riyadh.

However, reports on TFC have also confirmed that A (H1N1) has reached my hometown, Iloilo City. The initial case involved only one person verified to be carrying the virus. I hope the spread will not be rapid and rampant.

I am praying it will not infect any of my family or friends. With times being hard economically as it is, getting sick is out of the question, especially with the strain it will put not only on our bodies but also on our meager budgets. Not to mention the social stigma it will carry at work and with other people!

On the Gulf front, swine flu has reached Oman as well. I got this piece of news from two sources – (1) local news and (2) word of mouth (no pun intended).

From the first source, it was reported that there were three Omani students who have been infected by the virus. It is a good thing they were identified and subsequently medicated, but no other details were given as to who and where they were.

These people arrived from the United States, where they caught the illness. In addition to the summer vacation and the corollary influx of students coming home, lots of people have been going out of and coming into Oman for holidays.

The second and more intriguing news source relayed to yours truly that a Philippine national working at a popular American fastfood chain in Al Khuwair caught A (H1N1) while out of the country and only discovered he or she (gender not disclosed) was a carrier while already back at work in Muscat.

What’s more, the fastfood’s aforementioned branch was closed for half a day earlier this week as a precaution, presumably for some quick-fix disinfecting and to make sure all their other staff have not caught the virus.

However, I must emphasize that the second case remains unconfirmed by local authorities and media as of this writing.

Given the pandemic levels that swine flu has already reached, it would be better to err on the side of caution.

On a lighter note, Diana Vilibert shared this swine flu shirt at Nerve Blogs: The Modern Materialist:

And, no, I will not mention anything about its medical and factual veracity.

The whole world has been running scared of the Novel influenza A (H1N1) virus, more commonly known as “Swine Flu“, for several weeks now. What reportedly started in Mexico has spread all over the globe.

Probably the biggest swine-flu related news in my home country right now is that De La Salle University, based in the Philippine capital Metro Manila, has declared that classes are suspended until June 14th at the Taft campus. One of their students, a 21-year-old Japanese man who came into the country for a foreign exchange program, was found to have been infected by the virus.

The student did not exhibit the symptoms until at least a week after classes began at DLSU. The university’s school year started early, on Monday, 25th May 2009.

This foreign exchange student, apparently, was able to pass through the thermal scanners at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) terminal during arrival. He had attended four classes during his first week at school, interacting with at least a hundred students, not counting DLSU faculty and staff.

As of this writing, the student’s roommate has already checked into a hospital to self-quarantine, as a precautionary measure. The Department of Health has already begun a trace on all the people the infected girl had somehow been in contact with.

DLSU is currently at Alert Level 3, hence the suspension of classes. All other educational institutions in Metro Manila are at Alert Level 2, with classes still ongoing.

As for the Middle East, I picked up from ABS-CBN‘s The Filipino Channel (TFC) news that a Filipino nurse working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has been found positive of carrying the A (H1N1) virus. This person has just come back into Saudi after a trip home to the Philippines.

So far, Oman’s Ministry of Health has been reporting through various media (newspapers, SMS, television, etc.) that the Sultanate remains free of Swine Flu.

I hope this will not change until the epidemic scare abates.

At around half past eight this evening, an electrical fire broke out about four blocks away from our house, near the Sacred Heart missionary residence at Quezon Street.

It was a freak incident caused by a short-circuit from a flimsy wire-tap contraption, devised by those who were not legally and properly connected to the Panay Electric Company but source their power straight from the streetlight posts.

To make matters worse, the accident started right next to a firecracker factory. By 9 o’clock, there were huge sparks flying off the burning site, threatening to cross blocks. Not to mention the explosions that were heard throughout the whole of Arevalo whenever more gunpowder would catch fire. Majority of the people in our subdivision got panicky enough to decide to pack their things just in case the whole thing got bigger.

Luckily, the police and the firemen arrived by 9:30 PM and were able to put out the flames and get the victims to the hospital, as there were a few people who got electrocuted.

It was quite an eventful night for me. Minutes right after the fire broke out, I was there close to the site with two other former college schoolmates who lived nearby. Up close, it was blazing hot and reeked sourly of gunpowder, paper and wood. Observers, including ourselves, would retreat a few meters if there were explosions.

At one point, there was a series of big explosions, probably from completed kamara and bilong-bilong, that tripled the size of the fire so suddenly it made people scream and run away.

There were six buildings that got burned down, including the missionary house and the firecracker factory. There would be a follow-up investigation as to how and why the fire started exactly.

Some wire-tapping heads will roll. I am very thankful that the fire did not get to cross blocks, otherwise more individuals will be added to my To-Torture-Mindless-Before-Killing list.

Today marks the 104th Anniversary of Philippine Independence, commemorating the event in Kawit, Cavite years ago when General Emilio Aguinaldo first raised the country’s true flag as a symbol of our freedom from around 333 years of Spanish rule.

Following the most recent developments as regards the Mindanao/Abu Sayyaf crisis, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo made history by raising the symbolic Independence Day colors not in significant historical landmarks, as what is traditionally done, but at the very center of the conflict, Lamitan, Basilan.

This place used to be an Abu Sayyaf stronghold, as they laid siege to its hospital and church June last year. Lamitan was recently reclaimed by the Philippine Armed Forces, with the President creating a mandate to name the district’s hospital after slain Abu Sayyaf hostage Ediborah Yap.

To all my fellow Filipinos all over the world, Maligayang Araw ng Kalayaan.

My father has been obsessing all night about this. Scroll down the page and you will see the Anna Nicole Smith piece, which states that she was awarded 475 million dollars.

Maundy Thursday has been very quiet, with only two local networks airing shows, with these being a live telecast of the meeting of popular national religious organization El Shaddai and a prayer encounter with Bo Sanchez’s charismatic group. A few short bits of Holy Week reflections were thrown in here and there.

To keep up with the overall somber mood, I have been alternating the first and second Master of Chant albums as BGM.

At early dawn, around 2:00 or 3:00 A.M., we heard several sirens, signaling fire trucks passing through the old road close to our house. It turned out that there was a big fire in Molo, a neighboring suburb.

The incident took place in a lumber stockyard, owned by the Gopun family, and resulted to a loss of at least 10 million pesos. That would only be counting the cost of merchandise that was burned; it would be much more if the cost of fixtures and structures were added in.

To think that March is supposed to be our National Fire Prevention Month.