First came the rain. Then the oil spill.

MANILA, Philippines – On Monday morning, July 29, the water turned black.

The waves were huge that morning, said Cheryl Merquita, 33, and they carried a deluge of trash stained with oil. That Monday afternoon, everybody lent a hand in cleaning up the oil. The women wore pink gloves.

The residents of Barangay Amaya 5 in Tanza, Cavite were then still reeling from the effects of the southwest monsoon or habagat, intensified by Typhoon Carina, that dumped heavy rain a day before MT Terranova sank in Bataan.