Dealing with disasters

How many times have we read or heard about construction accidents that have cost lives, injured others, and damaged property?

Some of these are plain and simple criminal acts resulting from building contractors or owners cheating or insisting on using substandard construction materials to save on costs. Other cases, however, are brought about by changes in the environment.

In the first case, there is no recourse but to file charges against those who have been remiss and negligent, especially if it can be proven that there have been unauthorized variations in the approved building plans and permits.

The latter case, though, is something that our building regulators must give added thought. In the same way as the Philippines is receiving aid and assistance in preparing families and communities to deal with natural calamities, so must the government do its part by making sure that even existing building structures are better protected against environmental change.

Because we live in interesting times, when climatic change is bringing us winds and rains that have never been experienced in increasing frequency and strength, the standard for building and maintaining our modes of shelter have to adapt.

Many old technologies that were accepted as standards before need to be reexamined, and new “smarter” materials and methods have to be introduced that would be able to cope with the most severe of storms that could possibly lash out at us.

Land use and zoning

In the same way, there is now more urgency for the government to continuously update the process of drawing up the Comprehensive Land Use Plan for the whole country, with perhaps emphasis on the mitigation of natural disasters.

The tragedy that Leyte, Samar and surrounding areas experienced from Super Typhoon Haiyan in end 2013 gives our land use and building regulators with the necessary impetus to continue updating plans on how to mitigate the damages that may be incurred from these unavoidable incidents.

For the medium term, putting together a national land use plan would have to be a work in progress as we try to learn more about the dramatic climatic changes in our midst, and how these are affecting our seas, shorelines, mountains, and the way each and every one of us lives and will live in the future.

Sharing information

Also, more than ever, the role of each local government becomes important with regards sharing information that may be useful in other similar localities that face similar risks and threats, and in further reducing disaster risks.

We must be mindful that based on the list of the worst natural disasters that befell the Philippines, four of them happened in the last seven years, and three of them in the last four years: Typhoon Sendong (2011), Typhoon Pablo (2012), and Yolanda or Haiyan (2013).

While the most recent disasters were wrought by storms or typhoons, the Philippines has had its share of equally disastrous earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, landslides and flooding.

Coping with disasters

Local governments, with assistance from international agencies, have recently been preparing for disaster mitigation – from purchasing equipment like boats, amphibians and fire trucks, to conducting evacuation drills and community awareness activities.

All these have successively helped in bringing down fatality figures during the last big typhoons, although reducing damage to property continues to be a major challenge.

Some lessons continue to be difficult to implement, like those that deal with the prevention of flooding in parts of Metro Manila or other major cities when typhoons that are heavily laden with rain threaten to pass.

For example, the cleaning of esteros and other waterways found within the urban centers are often done on an ad hoc basis, i.e., when there is only the threat of strong rains passing through the territory.

Major flood control projects are even more difficult to pursue, and this is not just because there is no budget allocation. After the clean up, it seems that people simply choose to forget that similar disasters could again strike them and damage properties.

Creative solutions

Of course the Philippines is a poor country compared to Japan, for example, which could consider building expensive concrete barriers on its shorelines that are at risk to somehow deflect incoming waves and minimize the damage to property and lives.

Still, there are other less ambitious and costly solutions within the reach of a developing economy like ours. We as a people will just have to put on our creative thinking caps to come up with some cost-effective measures.

While we pray that the phenomenon of recent disasters is not a trend that our people will have to reckon with in the immediately future, the need to be prepared in similar (or even worse) eventualities cannot be overlooked or taken lightly.

A few bumps

We give way to one of our readers, Michael McCullough of KMC MAG Group, Inc., who sent this email reacting to a recent column on the real estate sector. Here’s what he wrote:

“Nice article on Philstar about Ramon Ang worrying about a real estate bubble. Our own research expert, Antton Nordberg, wrote an interesting piece on the speculation in BGC lots.

“I’ve been looking closer at the sales take-up in the residential sector as our data becomes better, [and] I’m personally surprised how many condo units continue to get built and sold.

“That being said, there may be a few bumps in the road, but the overall long term outlook for the Philippines is positive.”

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Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, Salcedo Village, 1227 Makati City. Or e-mail me at [email protected]. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net.