Being stuck in traffic for 8 hours was something I didn’t expect to tick off my bucket list

As someone who regularly travels up north to Clark, Pampanga, for work, it’s safe to say that I’ve become accustomed to the one- to two-hour commute via the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX). And considering that I’ve driven in pretty bad weather in near-zero visibility conditions, I was just expecting this to be another rainy afternoon commute.

But this was July 21, 2025, when the heavy monsoon rains brought flooding in several parts of Metro Manila and surrounding provinces.

At around 5:30 PM, we were checking the conditions to head back south after a whole day’s shoot. Apart from some social media posts about flooding, NLEX was moving, aside from the usual slower pace of traffic. Google Maps and Waze were clear, too.

We departed from Pampanga shortly after in our Honda HR-V 1.5 S CVT tester with about half a tank of gas, and we were expecting to end this drive with at least two bars of gas left.

Nothing too unusual aside from a few who were driving with their hazards or high beams on (which shouldn’t be done, just so you know), and then a couple of motorists who were driving incredibly aggressively as if they were the reincarnation of Ayrton Senna in the wet.

At one point, conditions worsened. The Honda HR-V’s Honda Sensing systems didn’t even work at all due (a safety feature) to the extremely haphazard weather, meaning things are getting serious. As we approached NLEX Drive & Dine, we suddenly got an ominous warning from Waze saying “11-minute slowdown ahead.”

Note that the NLEX Corporation did not announce any warnings about the roads being impassable. “It’s all good so far“, we thought, as Julian started scouring social media for any news.

At 6:38 PM, traffic was slowing down. “This isn’t good,” I thought. Suddenly, cars started stopping, one by one. Waze said to expect around 13 minutes of a slowdown, so I assumed there was just someone who stopped on the side of the road because of an accident.

And then, traffic stopped moving. On the phone, Julian was browsing social media for reports of flooding, and sure enough, the “catch basin” area of NLEX Valenzuela (and apparently, Balintawak) was flooded. Our route showed the red-and-white stripes, meaning it was closed and impassable.

Oh no.

7:30 PM. The car was down to four bars of gas. We’ve only moved about 20 meters from where we stopped, and nothing much really happened. Opportunistic locals were swarming the streets, selling stranded motorists snacks, water, and even the odd Cup Noodles for inflated prices.

The rain was still strong, so walking back to NLEX Drive & Dine (which was just a few meters away) was nearly impossible without getting drenched.

Suddenly, there’s an opening. Several cars make a beeline for it very aggressively, complete with honking, flashing, and brake checking. There’s a saying that when it rains, people suddenly forget how to drive.

It didn’t really make sense for motorists to be fighting with each other, or to lose my cool with these people. If we were going to be stuck in traffic, we had to remain positive. We killed our engines for a bit to conserve gas after we saw someone walk by with a plastic jug filled with gasoline, which wasn’t a good sign.

It’s around 9:00 PM, and we finally passed the Canumay Bridge after two hours. 200-ish meters in two hours! Things weren’t getting better, and the rain kept on pouring.

Admittedly, all of this could have been avoided if we had seen a warning from NLEX Corporation much earlier, but it’s safe to assume that even they were caught off guard by the magnitude of the rain.

The weather got better at 10:00 PM, enough for a few motorists to step outside of their vehicles. I figured it was the perfect time to evaluate the situation and also find out where I could go for a quick bathroom break.

A 15-minute walk on NLEX felt surreal as I passed through dozens of stopped cars with people fast asleep, trying to pass the time on their phones, or even a few disgruntled bus commuters taking their bags and walking home. The northbound lane, on the other hand, had a few abandoned cars (presumably hydrolocked), but was empty.

Julian and I agreed that if we came across one of those U-turn slots, we would use it and pass the time at a gas station. I see one, but to my dismay, it’s clogged because everyone is dead set on waiting for the road ahead to be passable.

And up ahead, it’s whisper quiet. I come across the flooded area, which looks like a massive lake.

Eerily, several cars, trucks, and buses were stuck in the deepest part of that area, and the pumping station was dead quiet and probably overwhelmed, despite an announcement from NLEX Corporation that they were pumping the floodwaters.

I guess that means we weren’t going to go home today.

I went up the Valenzuela Exit in Paso de Blas to see if the alternate route that leads to the NLEX Connector would be passable, but even that place is gridlocked.

This was followed by a quick detour to the nearby 7-11 to grab some food and water, but even the water was running out, and of course, they didn’t accept cashless payments. Oh well.

After heading back to the car, there was nothing that we could do other than wait and crawl very slowly as cars started to turn around. If anything, the HR-V had very, very comfortable seats (even if it was the base variant), and it was fuel-efficient enough to not burn through all the gasoline by just idling and keeping us comfortable with the A/C on.

By 12:02 AM, cars started moving forward. A portion of the Valenzuela catch basin had dried up, allowing a handful of cars to pass.

We were lucky enough that the HR-V had generous ground clearance to cross a slightly flooded part where a few cars were struggling to cross, and when we finally cleared Valenzuela, the streets were empty, all the way to my house in Makati.

What could’ve been a simple one-hour, forty-minute drive became an unexpected eight-hour crawl in traffic. I could imagine what the people heading northbound were dealing with, as the flooded areas in Valenzuela and Balintawak weren’t passable until around 1:00 AM, apparently.

I realized that there were a few things that we could’ve done better before this entire ordeal, like coming prepared with food and more water. It’s also important to maintain good vibes and make the best of a situation where you can’t do anything anymore.

Acceptance is key. If you have any doubts about the flood ahead of you, don’t do it. Otherwise, you might end up inconveniencing those people behind you (who are better equipped to handle it) and may cause them to get stuck.

It’s a bit sad to see that people are saying that events like these will become the norm (with how often that section of NLEX floods), but instead of simply sucking it up and treating it as a way how people survive calamities as “Filipino resiliency”, I think it’s time that we have the government and respective agencies step up and do something about it.

There’s a story that struck me, where the village of Fudai in Iwate, Japan, managed to withstand the 2011 tsunami thanks to the late mayor (Kotaku Wamura)’s efforts of building a 51-foot high seawall in the 1970s. He was ridiculed for the idea, but he kept at it. It was his vow to prevent it from happening ever again after two tsunamis ravaged the village in 1896 and 1933.

I think this is the kind of preventive behavior we should have, rather than the reactive behavior that’s currently on display. And perhaps, if we ever get to it, events like these may soon become a memory of the past.

^{Photos by Sam Surla and Julian Panlilio}