Rats among us

September 6, 2024

MANILA – Heavy continuous rain this week has resulted in flooding that brings water and mud into low-lying homes. I am afraid to even imagine what else comes with the floodwaters: snakes, rats, germs, and disease.

I’ve been eye to eye with a live rat in Chinese restaurants. First time was in an upscale Makati restaurant where the rat made an appearance on a ledge behind our elegant hostess. Not only was this rat fat, it was obviously fed with good food as its fur was shiny and lustrous. Second time was in an Ermita restaurant, where a rat generated shrieks and caused panic in the dining room. A waiter came out with a broom and after shooing the rodent away, declared triumphantly: “Ok na po, tinaboy ko na po sa kusina ang daga!” (It’s all right folks, I drove that rat into the kitchen!) Needless to say, I paid the bill without finishing my meal. I didn’t take out the leftovers either.

Southeast Asian newspapers from the 1920s to the 1930s had many articles on rats. Everywhere from Manila to Saigon, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok, and Jakarta, the papers carried news of anti-rat campaigns driven by fear of the bubonic plague. This was the 14th-century “Black Death” that I learned about in school. Until I read prewar Asian papers, I didn’t know that it reached our shores in the early 20th century.

The disease was caused and spread by the bite of infected fleas that were carried worldwide by rats. As a port city, Manila under United States occupation subjected ships to stringent sanitary inspection before they were allowed to dock. Stowaway rats disembarked with people and cargo on gangplanks and crawled on the ropes and cables that attached ships to the pier. In the port of Manila, piers were constructed