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Floods, Gravity and Walruses
“This blunt question seeks a blunt answer,” we texted the senior official. “Can Cebu City cope with an ‘Ondoy” typhoon?” Cebu is linchpin for the country’s second largest metro areas. There are 2.13 million men, women and children in it’s 12 surrounding towns and cities. “That’s a good question,” he stammered. Skip the baloney, we persisted. “What do you think?” The answer would be relevant to 11 other metro areas, including Dagupan, Angeles, Olongapo and Batangas. He came clean. “We jacked up emergency allocation from P2 million to P10 million. But this is knee-jerk reaction. We haven’t thought-out a disaster management plan. Nor have we consulted citizens. We merely react after a storm hits. We’re sitting ducks.” That there are other sitting ducks is cold comfort. Last January, floods rampaged through Cagayan de Oro and uprooted 5,000 families. Davao has vulnerable low areas like Toril and Bangkal. The council created a Task Force on Climate Change –and promptly forgot about it. The task force has never met. Since August, 15 out of 18 towns in North Cotabato have been swamped, Mindanao Cross reports. So were Sultan Kudarat in Maguindanao and low-lying areas of Cotabato City. "What we are seeing is a phenomenon that will affect many major cities in Asia," says Neeraj Jain, Asian Development Bank country specialist for the Philippines. "Urbanization has been so rapid. Yet, the planning processes have lagged." Begging for international aid is not a substitute for policy. Nor do we need a crystal bowl on what needs to be done. Can officials of the country’s 12 metro areas, for a start, talk to each other? When “Ondoy” struck, all Metro Manila had was a sketchy obsolete barely-funded emergency plan. Perpetually bickering over territorial limits and perks, metro mayors agreed on basics, like common survival. Yet, this “disease:” is nationwide. Vertigo overtakes you an hour after you land at Lumbia Airport in Cagayan de Oro. A glut of Rep. Rufus Rodriguez’s roadside posters drives one giddy. They proclaim the solon’s altruism in allocating your Vat-taxes for his projects. Still, Rodriguez makes sense with House Bill 5908. This would get Bukidnon, Misamis Oriental and Lanao to manage waters that cascade from the towering Mount Kitanglad in Bukidnon and Kalatungan range in Lanao down Cagayan de Oro river. “We can manage our own resources,” scoffed Bukidnon Governor Jose Maria Zubiri. “We do not need to be dictated on.” Did Zubiri think Isaac Newton’s law on gravity had been repealed? Water doesn’t halt at borders of Bukidnon and Lanao. Floods ignore governors and congressmen. Instead, they smash everything in the way to Macajalar Bay. They did just that in Metro Manila. We need a Land Use Plan that will tear down buildings on rivers and floodplains. “Charge people for the volume of waste they produce,” urges Columnist Alex Magno. "There's no coordinated policy for cleaning up garbage,” National Institute for Policy Studies Lambert Ramirez told Time magazine while rummaging through his oflooded home “There's no political will to get even simple things done.” A “simple thing” would be: Prohibit officials from approving honoraria for themselves. Commission on Audit records confirm this is an unchecked national epidemic. Jacked up salaries that officials approve should take effect only their terms end. Stuffing their own pockets is one reason local officials couldn’t even buy rescue boats. Trees are essential. Forest cover in Cebu, for example, is down to two percent – far below the 30 percent minimum required for ecological stability. Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Beijing massively plant trees on every available plot. “Why is Mayor Tomas Osmena 296-hectare south reclamation project still treeless 10 years after it started?”, we texted our City Hall friend. “SRP has a few decorative trees,” he replied. “But what have Bering sea walruses got to do with Osmena’s SRP?” Climate change drove walruses to stampede as coastal sea ice, that normally serves as a late-summer haven and nursery, melts, US Biological Survey reports. Hundreds were trampled. “I think there is reason to be concerned,” University of Alaska cautions. “Alps’ glaciers are melting. Sea levels are rising. Connect the dots,” I replied. Ondoy’s death toll now stands at 293. “We got a glimpse of the apocalypse,” an Inquirer editorial said. “There is a pressing need to convene a commission on inquiry” that looks at how government performed. This is welcome. One reason is today’s fatalities have acquired a Kafka like surrealism. Does the past explain why, as today’s “sitting ducks”, we could be tomorrow’s victims?, a commission could ask. Remember Typhoon “Uring” (International code name: “Thelma”)? The storm lashed the Visayas on November 5, 1991. People in Ormoc City said it brought the “heaviest rains in 19 years”. Those who survived, that is. The overflow from Anilao River swept over 5,101 to their deaths. That’s almost 17 times the “ Ondoy” apocalypse. Only 200 of the 2,500 residents in Isla Verde, in the midst of Anilao River, lived. Ormoc occurred before the cellphone Internet, Facebook and Twitter. Was this a reason why we’ve forgotten this apocalypse so quickly? “Because of the death toll and other effects of the storm, the names ‘Thelma’ and ‘Uring’ were retired from future use.” That step, however, didn’t drill needed lessons into us. Are we sitting ducks because we are also dunces? Perhaps the commission should examine that issue too. E-mail: juanlmercado@gmail.com |
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