Disasters ‘r’ us

MANILA
Does the Philippines have a monopoly on disasters? They never seem to stop coming to this unlucky country.
Australia is the country that calls itself “unlucky,” even though the land Down Under is blessed with abundant natural resources, a vast and wondrous land, and a resilient and resourceful people. A number of countries in Africa are prone to disasters too, both wrought by nature and by man. In the Americas, Haiti and Bolivia are among the poorest nations on earth.
And yet, the Philippines, a Catholic country at that, can’t seem to escape trouble. It can’t seem to get its head above water, drowning in both self-inflicted and natural calamities.
At this writing, heavy rains are pummeling parts of the big southern island of Mindanao, resulting in floods that disrupt people’s lives there. Last year and the year before, typhoons lashed at several provinces and cities in that area, dislocating thousands of people from their homes and places of work. (As I write this, rain has been steady here in Manila, too.)
So what’s the big deal about that in a country that is host to annual monsoons, the perceptive reader might ask. The big deal is that Mindanao had never been a traditional destination of typhoons and heavy rains before. It’s only in the past few years that this disruptive weather condition has visited the region, proof that weather patterns all over the world have changed drastically, as dramatically experienced in the New York area recently.
The Visayas in central Philippines and many parts of Luzon, including the capital Manila, have been the favorite places where storms hang out annually in the rainy season. The Pacific Ocean side of the Philippines expect to be battered by furious seasonal rains and high winds; places on the eastern seaboard of the Visayas and the Bicol region in southern Luzon.
But lately, storms have not been discriminating, they’ve been making themselves felt hard in non-traditionally typhoon-prone areas. And the problem with flood waters is they tend to stay on for weeks or months even after the storms have left.
Still on the subject of Mindanao, there is currently an unexpected ticklish situation in the southernmost part of Mindanao, on Sulu island, because followers of the Sultan of Sulu have taken a yet-inexplicable move to “invade” Sabah in Borneo, claiming it as belonging to the Sultan.
Media reports say about 300 armed men have landed in Sabah a week or so ago at this writing to claim Sabah. The Philippine government has an outstanding but dormant claim over Sabah. This is an age-old dispute over real estate that the Muslims in Mindanao and the national government have been pushing based on ancient rights. While previous governments in Manila have kept the claim alive they’ve also put it on the back burner in order not to annoy Malaysia (where Borneo is located) because Kuala Lumpur has been helpful to the Philippine government in brokering peace between the latter and the Muslim Mindanaoans who have been attempting to secede for decades (maybe even for centuries).
So there is at this writing an awkward stand-off in Sabah between the Sultan’s men and Malaysian authorities, the end result of which is murky and speculative at this point. The national government in Manila is taking a cautious approach, leaving the matter to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The hope is that the armed impasse will not end in a bloody confrontation and deaths, with cooler heads prevailing.
And finally, the campaigning for the May 13 midterm elections has started for aspirants vying for national office (senators). These elections, as usual, promise to be rambunctious, unruly and expensive, and even deadly in some areas that are not unlike the American Wild West where the gun used to rule the land.
By the way, the Observer stated in the last column that candidates here have been campaigning prematurely, against election law, in violation of the rule fixing the length of time for campaigning. The number of days allowed for national candidates is actually 90 days and for local bets (congressmen, governors, mayor and other local offices), 45 days. The Observer gave shorter periods in the last column but that doesn’t change the observation that candidates had violated campaign rules because they indeed started campaigning too early and prematurely, which is typical of Filipino politicians who disregard regulations.
In the coming weeks leading to the May 13 election day, the political scene here will be lively, inane and disruptive. Politicians of all stripes will be traipsing across the landscape to market themselves to the voting public. Some candidates will invade town centers to plug themselves, with showbiz celebrities in tow to better attract the curious and the star-struck. Giant billboards will literally litter public areas, every space available (in violation of election rules that designate specific areas for billboards, posters, and streamers). Unlucky for the poorer candidates who cannot match the resource-endowed politicians who have all the money to pour into their campaigns (even though election law sets campaign finance limits and forbids overspending).
(When I lived in the United States, one of the things that struck me about elections there, especially at the local level, was the relative quiet and undisruptive conduct of campaigns. Local elections are barely noticeable because campaigning and posters and streamers are confined to specific sites and not all over the place as here in the Philippines.)
Money, with inflationary implications, will flow from the candidates who, if elected, will of course, recoup their “investment” by profiting from the privileges enjoyed by elected officials. I’m sure there are other countries where public officials make money out of their positions, but here in the Philippines, politicians have turned money-making out of government projects into an art. Many, probably most, politicians here go into politics to make money.
(And speaking of the
wild, wild West, new cases of accidental shootings from stray bullets have again hit the news. the Reader will recall that the Observer had written before about at least two deaths from such stray shootings, at that time the result of illegal firings of guns during New Year festivities. The recent cases haven’t been traced to any specific reason and they, as the earlier incidents, remain unsolved by police.)
Is Philippine politics a disaster too to merit mention in a column about disasters? It is, from the point of view of the people. The people, and the country in the end, suffer from the kind of politics that is played here. Still feudal in character, politics here is controlled by warlords and their henchmen. Whole provinces and towns are under the thumbs and dominated by powerful local politicians reminiscent of ancient practices in countries that have long ago modernized and gotten rid of such antediluvian practices.
One of the hottest political topics here is the continuing power and suffocating influence of family dynasties that control their respective bailiwicks. Members of the same family take turns running for the same or similar positions in order to maintain their control over their towns, provinces, even regions. And, often, the same politicians are also the economic and financial elite in their areas, some local, others at the national level.
There is a growing clamor among the more discerning voters here to get rid of political dynasties. The Philippine Constitution forbids the presence of such dynasties but there is no “implementing” law to enforce the prohibition. And why would politicians in Congress pass a law that bans dynasties when most of them are themselves political dynasts? It’s a political Catch-22 with no solution in sight in the near future.
So where will the burgeoning movement to break up political dynasties end up? The way things work around here, probably in the dustbin of history.
But hope springs eternal, of course, Maybe times have really changed, and the people are serious and committed enough to change things and not vote for any politician who is a member or is identified with a political dynasty. That would be the day!
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