MANILA, Philippines?Marooned for hours on a rooftop in flooded Marikina City at the height of Tropical Storm "Ondoy," doctor Erika Logarta-San Jose and her companions survived by eating pandesal (salted bread), counting Hail Marys on her fingers, and laughing at jokes in the face of a catastrophe.

Battered by ceaseless rain, San Jose and 17 others, including a two-year-old child, were trapped on a roof of a printing press by floodwaters just outside Provident Village for more than 17 hours from noontime on Saturday until early Sunday morning.

And no rescuers came for them. The first ones to arrive in rubber boats told her group they were conducting a ?survey? and proceeded to the inundated village, leaving them to endure their situation.

?It was too much. I don?t know where I was getting my strength. I wouldn?t wish what happened even for someone who is my worst enemy,? San Jose said in an interview.

?We we?re like rats trapped and holding on for dear life,? she added.

San Jose said she had no idea of the deluge that was about to befall her when she came to work that Saturday morning.

San Jose had gone to the restaurant she partly owns along Saint Mary Avenue near the entrance of Provident Village at around 9 a.m.

?I thought it was going to be a normal rainy day in Manila. I would usually bring along my three kids with me on Saturdays, but thank God that on that day, they were still asleep when I left our house in Quezon City so I left them there,? San Jose said.

?When we were trapped, I only had to worry about myself and our group and almost all of us were grown-ups who knew how to swim,? she added.

While the rain had already started to pour, the signs that something was wrong began at 11 a.m. when residents of Provident Village began leaving the subdivision on board their cars.

?They were seeking higher ground for their vehicles so they were bringing them out,? she added.

Then the deluge came. At around 12 noon, as a heavy rain fell, muddy flood waters suddenly entered the restaurant, which then had five customers, including a mother and her baby.

?The dike inside Provident was breached and in a matter of just five to 10 minutes, the restaurant was flooded. The tables were floating and soon overturned,? San Jose said.

San Jose said she and her 12 staff members tried to salvage their belongings and hurriedly put these and some bread into empty water containers just in case the flood water kept rising?and it did.

The doctor and her staff and their customers climbed up the roof of the restaurant using a ladder they found to escape the muddy waters that had flooded the first floor.

?Luckily, we also found a told (plastic tarp). It was torn in many places but at least it gave us some protection from the unrelenting rain and wind,? San Juan said.

The floodwaters, however, continued to rise and, by 4 p.m., was already reaching the restaurant?s roof.

?I was talking with a brother and he told me to seek high ground ... There is a printing press beside the restaurant that had three floors. He said we should go up,? San Juan said.

Using the ladder that they found, the doctor and her 17 companions carefully climbed the ladder to the roof of the printing press as the rain and the wind lashed on them.

?The baby boy had to be wrapped in plastic so that he wouldn?t get wet. Those inside the printing press had already smashed their glass windows to get out,? San Juan said.

But after four hours on the roof, Ondoy?s rain and wind still battered them and showed no signs of easing while the floodwaters continued to rise.

?I thought wala na (it?s over). Wala na. I started shouting ?Our Father, who art in heaven ?,? said San Jose.

?I prayed the Rosary shouting and everybody quieted down,? she added.

San Jose said she had no Rosary beads with her so she had to count the Hail Marys and the mysteries on her fingers.

?It was getting dark but the rain kept on falling. There was no electricity so when night fell, it was really dark. We had no flashlights,? she said.

?We could see lights on some distant buildings but around us, there was darkness,? she added.

And they were not alone. Cockroaches and other insects crawled on their feet as the little insects also tried to escape the floodwaters below.

?Once our eyes adjusted to the dark, we could also see other people who were also trapped on their roofs,? San Jose said.

But San Jose and her staff also worried for three of their colleagues who had decided to brave the flood waters before night fell and proceeded to their barracks, which was inside the subdivision.

?They wanted to save their things but they were not able to make it there. They had to climb and tree and spent the whole night there until the waters receded,? San Jose said.

Many were not as lucky.

San Jose said that her companions saw the dead bodies of a young man, an elderly woman tightly embracing a child, and other bodies floating past the printing press.

?I could not look at them. It?s too much. It just breaks your heart,? she said.

?The atmosphere was eerie. We could see the lights on buildings along Katipunan (avenue) in the horizon but we were still in the dark,? she added.

After the more hours on the roof, San Jose?s companions pried open the empty water containers and styrofoam packs and pulled out the pandesal to quiet their grumbling stomachs.

?The baby had fallen asleep. Her mother had also tried to nurse him. I also had (candy) mints in my bag. No one complained of thirst,? San Jose said.

She said the floodwaters only began to recede around 3 a.m. and they tried to salvage some food that had floated from the restaurant.

?There was a can of (soda) and a pack of chicharon (pork cracklings) and some of the guys found a pack of dry cigarettes so they had that. Freebies from the flood,? San Jose said.

From the other rooftops also came greetings from other people who were trapped, asking if they were all right.

When they saw that that some of the people on the other rooftops were also smoking cigarettes, some of San Jose?s companions shouted and joked if they could bum some.

They reply went: ?Come. Go ahead. Swim for it.?

?Filipinos have this trait of finding something to laugh about even in dire situations like this,? San Jose said.

?It was natural to feel panic at the start but later on we became confident about our situation,? she said.

But still they yearned to be rescued. San Jose said she talked with her brother on one of the two cellphones she was able to keep dry but the message that got to her was that the President was telling victims to keep safe and help themselves.

?OK fine. But there were not even words of encouragement. When the first rescuers came, and we asked if they came for us, the reply was: `survey lang po,?? San Jose said.

?Then they proceeded to Provident which was in a much worse situation. The village was like a cul de sac. We understood that,? she said.

?We?re still thankful that we didn?t lose anybody we love,? added San Jose, who was able to get down from the rooftop with her companions at 5 a.m. Sunday.