MANILA
It rained non-stop on the first week of August here, resulting in 60 deaths and 2.5 million people affected by flooding. This capital city and 16 provinces took the brunt of destruction.
Rains from the southwest monsoon, made more savage by tropical storm Haikui (local name: Gener), came down without let-up and within 22 hours the heavens sent down 472 millimeters of rainfall, the equivalent of one-month of rain dropping from the skies in less than one day. At this writing, some 314,000 people are still stranded in evacuation centers in various locations. The total cost of destruction is at this time still unknown but it will be in the billions of pesos (millions even in the strong Canadian dollar).
The affected people needed the deluge like a hole in the head. It’s always the poor and the vulnerable who take the hit, although many middle-class citizens also suffered. Ironically, part of the blame belongs to the disaster’s victims and casualties.
Many parts of Metro Manila are located below sea level and are, therefore, prone to flash floods. The metropolitan area’s major river system is clogged up with all sorts of refuse from households and industrial sources and, thus, is unable to absorb heavy volumes of water when torrential rains tumble down from the skies and from the mountains. Forest areas surrounding the urban centers have long been denuded and are unable to serve as buffer zones for onrushing rainwater.
Hundreds of thousands of people live as squatters in public areas like riverbanks, spaces under bridges and elevated roadways (called flyovers) and idle private property. Needless to say, such areas, because they’re not designed for human habitation, are the first to suffer the destruction caused by floods and violent weather.
Worse, these people refuse to leave when warned of impending natural disasters for the simple reason that they have no place else to go and that they fear losing to looters the little property they own.
Illegal squatting (a redundant phrase, of course) has become a social and moral dilemma in this country. A social concern because so many people are homeless and are forced to occupy land that belongs to other people or to the government. A moral issue because you throw out squatters and leave them to the mercy of the elements as well as bad elements in society. It’s a philosophical and moral dilemma for this Observer, indeed a conundrum for which there seems to be no solution. You feel for your homeless countrymen but at the same they commit illegal acts that deprive others of the use of their own property or assets.
Squatter areas, as in all other parts of the world where such problems are a major public issue, are also breeding grounds for criminality because, sad to say, such ghettos (what a horrible world and image!) lead to uneducated or undereducated children who later end up jobless and useless citizens. This, of course, is a problem that is a curse to many urban centers in the world, including rich countries like the United States and some in Europe.
But a major problem it is. To make it worse, local government officials here condone squatting because slums are breeding grounds for babies and, later on, voters. Politicians don’t lift a finger about preventing squatting; they even seem to encourage it, for the very reason that slum areas are votes-rich. A moral dilemma compounded.
So, on the fateful first week of August, the same painful scenario of massive flooding, deaths, loss of unquantifiable property, damage to agriculture and infrastructure, and a huge cost to clean-up and rebuilding visited the people of this country in a devastating way.
It’s a familiar scenario to Filipinos. A history of incompetence and lack of political will among national and local officials has prevented the building of physical infrastructure to lessen the impact of seasonal rains and flooding. Hapless people who are forced to defy government and build colonies of illegal urban enclaves and settlements that are vulnerable to natural disasters. Established communities that over time have become exposed to natural calamities due to urbanization or climatic and/or topographical changes. Urban congestion and haphazard or inappropriate community planning. These have all combined to create localities that are no longer safe for people in which to live or work.
So many such natural disasters visit the Philippines every year. And every year, people scramble to save their lives and to find safety on higher ground. In the process they lose much, if not all, of their belongings, and even their very lives. In 2009, typhoon Ondoy dumped 455 millimeters of rain in 24 hours (341mm of it in only six hours, which explains its horrendous effect!) in Manila and environs, killing 464 people, affecting five million others, and causing P11 billion in damage to agriculture and infrastructure.
And now, this. Nature has been cruel. And man, too, because a lot of the problems are man-made, through clogged sewers, indiscriminate and irresponsible garbage disposal, excessive tree-cutting, etc.
Filipinos abroad are often loathe reading about social problems in their homeland and are embarrassed when their adopted countrymen learn about such social ills. But life is not all good news. In many parts of the world, not only in the Philippines, there is often more bad news than good news. That is life. It may be unfair, but that’s life. The Observer’s hope is that they don’t blame the messenger for bringing bad news.
Instead of cursing the bringer of unwanted news, Filipinos abroad can use the news to inform themselves of what’s happening in their home country and, if they’re so disposed, act to help in whatever way they can to lessen the suffering of their relatives here or even strangers who happen to suffer the bad luck of being vulnerable to disasters, whether natural or man-made.
Meanwhile, the national and local governments here need to act together to first, relocate vulnerable citizens to safe ground and homes (and provide jobs for them as much as practicable) and second, to build the necessary infrastructure to make cities and communities safe from the onslaught of Nature. So the destruction and pain of the first week of August 2012 and the many disasters of the past are not repeated year after year. President Benigno Aquino III has promised the people that his government will act soon to put in place disaster-mitigating measures and projects.
Too many Filipinos are already poor and can’t afford to be hit by annual devastations that are preventable. They need help.
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