City in a valley

A view of Marikina City and the mansion-like homes around the Capitol Hills Golf & Country Club under a bright blue noon sky filled with puffy little clouds. The city of Marikina is built in a valley between the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountain range and the ridge which marks the boundary of Quezon City. My father used to tell me how this fertile valley—a river runs its entire length—used to be nothing but rice fields. During the worst of our annual typhoons, the Marikina River always breaks its banks—good for paddy field agriculture but not for human settlements. In fact, Marikina City was one of the worst hit cities in Metro Manila during last year's devastating Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana).

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