ON Friday, Feb. 6, Tropical Storm Basyang (international name Penha) hit the province of Bohol, making landfall at about 9 a.m. near the municipality of Cabantian, lashing the island with heavy rain and strong winds as it moved westward. The storm took about six hours to cross Bohol, with its peak intensity being felt between noon and 3 p.m.; altogether, the province experienced bad weather for about 24 hours, from Thursday evening until Friday evening.
I know this without having to refer to the weather records (even though I did, just to fact-check myself) because I was in Bohol during that time, specifically on Panglao Island about 80 kilometers west of where the storm made landfall in the province. We arrived late Thursday morning, with the flight into Panglao International Airport already being buffeted upon landing by a wicked crosswind ahead of the storm, and then took shelter — very comfortably, I must say — in the lovely Modala Beach Resort on Doljo Beach for the duration of the show.
Basyang was by no means the worst tropical storm or typhoon I have experienced here in the Philippines, but it was nonetheless potentially dangerous. While it was passing, or in other words, for most of the day Friday, it was clearly unsafe to venture away from shelter, and going anywhere near the beach would have been a suicidal prospect. As I was blessed to be in a full-service resort with every convenience at hand, along with a doting and safety-conscious staff, the storm to me was at worst an interesting inconvenience. Since I have to be me, I handled that in the way that seemed appropriate at the time, which was to take some pictures and videos of Mother Nature’s onslaught, and then go to the bar.
Had I been in transit, however, or lodged in lower-cost accommodations, or been a resident of the area, the situation would have been a great deal riskier and stressful. Imagine my consternation, then, when at approximately 1:40 p.m., at the height of the storm, this idiotic post by the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Inquirer.net) appeared on Facebook:
A similar post was made to X (Twitter) at the same time by this individual, whom I assume is Inquirer’s Bohol correspondent. I will also have to assume that he was either located in some weird cone of calm, or was using pictures taken on a different day in order to post completely fake news. That is because at almost the exact same time as the correspondent was posting this lighthearted nonsense to social media, I took a short video of the conditions outside from my hotel room’s balcony. This is a screenshot from that video:
I probably don’t have to point it out, but the island’s waters were most certainly not even clearer and more crystal-like at that time. The island’s waters were, in fact, full of sand and seaweed, and smashed coral, and were surging much farther onto the beach than normal.
What the Inquirer newsroom was thinking by making these posts is a mystery. Making light of a weather emergency was at best in very poor taste. In this instance, since the news item involved a location that at the time was full of foreign tourists, it was grossly irresponsible and dangerous.
By the time the storm hit Bohol, it had already caused widespread flooding across northern Mindanao, killed a dozen people and displaced tens of thousands more. Roads and bridges were washed out in some locations, and large areas were affected by power outages. One province alone, Surigao del Sur, has reported more than P800 million in agricultural losses, according to the Philippine Information Agency. To be sure, the storm did not affect the province of Bohol too badly, an outcome that is being credited to a rapid and efficient response by local authorities. Nevertheless, there were still about 16,000 people evacuated from high-risk areas, and the local people reported that there was flooding in a few towns.
One shudders to think of the tragedy that would have ensued — to say nothing of the public relations nightmare for the Department of Tourism — had some foreign visitor, likely experiencing a tropical storm for the first time, ended up drowning because the nation’s largest newspaper led him to believe that it was safe to go play in the “clear and crystal-like” waters. Fortunately, that did not happen, as far as I know. I can only hope that the Inquirer realizes it dodged a bullet, and reflects on its shortcomings in accurate and responsible reporting.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social
Website: www.badmannersgunclub.com
