Pepito Pounds Philippines; Sixth Pounding This Month For Already Sore Country

(Manila) – Super typhoon Pepito pounded the Philippines on Saturday while the country is already feeling sore after repeated poundings by five other tropical storms this month.

Packing wind speeds of 195kmh and gusts of up to 325kmh as it battered the Philippines’ vulnerable eastern side, Pepito brought more soreness to the already suffering country.

Pepito is the sixth typhoon to assault disaster-weary Philippines in a month, after the country has already suffered successive humiliation from Kristine, Leon, Marce, Nika and Ofel.

“It’s a catastrophe,” President Marcos lamented at his weekly press conference. “It’s obscene the way these cyclones take turns hammering our country. But there’s nothing we can do but bend over and deal with it.”

Typhoons are an annual scourge for the Philippines but human-caused climate change has increased their intensity and penetrative power as oceans warm, causing more pain and soreness than usual.

Satellite photo: Super typhoon Pepito just before pounding the Philippines

“Life’s a bitch, especially if you live in this country,” says environment activist Jason Lagdameo, professor of Earth Science at De La Salle University.

“It’s an unfortunate fact of geography that the Philippines lies directly on the path of tropical cyclones. However, endemic corruption in the government has made their effect on our communities much worse. Our politicians’ inaction in the face of these indignities borders on masochism.”