MEDIUM RARE By JULLIE Y. DAZA Store water but not too much. Your life may be interrupted, disrupted but don’t complain overly much. Two months before Christmas and it’s summer again, too soon. Two summers in one year, in an archipelago surrounded by oceans, lakes, rivers, springs, falls, bays, creeks. Not enough rain to fill the dams? The water resources board suggests you pray. What about them? Aren’t they being paid to pray also? Two typhoons avoided us, good and bad news. Pray that the third one will be the lucky charm – just as long as there’s no flooding, landslide, tsunami or storm surge. Too much to ask from heaven! What season is it now? Water shortage season? Water crisis season? Rainy season but not enough precipitation. Dry season but not according to the calendar. Dear Lord, are we being punished for the sins of the few who have not had time to repent during the last few months? Should we ban swimming pools? Ban swimming? You need to know how to swim in case rain falls relentlessly like Ondoy of bad memories. The water level in Angat continues to drop. Not MWSS, not NWRB can solve the problem. Officials smilingly assure you it’s not their problem. They’ll also state it’s not within the power of Maynilad and Manila Water to find the means to create H20 to serve 14 million people. Save water. To quote environmentalists and ninja cops, reduce, reuse, recycle. Store water, transfer water flowing from a faucet to a drum without breaking your back. You can survive without water for half a day. There’s always time for entertainment, like watching family dramas such as the one starring the beautiful sisters and their pretty niece. With no less than the President in a cameo role as frustrated peacemaker. If Bilibid inmates can drop like flies by the hundreds – 450 at last count – in a case of death by congestion, do we still need a death penalty law? Unjust, unfair maybe, but who said there’s justice behind bars? Conventional wisdom puts at more than 55 percent the number of innocent prisoners unjustly locked up. If 33,000 inmates are safe from execution, they’re not safe from dying by congestion, malnutrition, and now, a lack of water (like parts of Pasay City and Bohol). Let’s hope those three factors are enough of a deterrent against crime.