A new NCR

I have noticed in my 70 years of living in the Philippines that our government hardly plans ahead to provide for potential catastrophic situations that scientists have warned about. Bahala na. Anyway, Filipinos are a resilient people… survivors.

But taking proactive steps reduces dangers to life and property. Take our situation in Metro Manila. We are bursting at the seams. We are now a megalopolis…we are more than just Metro Manila.

NEDA defines Mega Manila as Metro Manila and the surrounding provinces of Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite and Laguna. We are talking about 12 million people in Metro Manila. But there are varying definitions of what constitutes Mega Manila. There is also Mega Manila which includes more provinces encompassing the administrative regions of Central Luzon, Calabarzon and Metro Manila which brings the population to 41,099,507 as of 2020.

The core Metro Manila area is in serious trouble because our government allowed mindless growth in all directions. Without urban planning, we are one chaotic mess. We experience this daily with our merciless traffic jams.

But traffic jams are not all that has remained unattended. There are other challenges Metro Manila is facing including flooding, solid waste problems, deterioration of water and air quality and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The challenges arise from an absence of long-term urban planning.

The property companies have been taking advantage of this lack of government urban planning to maximize corporate profits at the expense of the needs of the community for more green and walkable spaces. One Ayala executive boasted in Singapore that the company is the de facto urban planner in the absence of the government.

It seems that our government is just waiting for one big catastrophe to level down the metropolis. That may happen if the so-called Big One, an earthquake of catastrophic proportions, happens along the West Valley Fault which separates the eastern part of the metropolis from the older western part.

Four major earthquakes have been determined to have taken place in the last 1,400 years along this fault. It has a recurrence interval of 400 to 500 years. The last major earthquake originating from the fault was recorded in 1658 or 357 years ago. This means the Big One may happen in our lifetime, or that of our children’s.

How bad would the Big One be?

According to the Metropolitan Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study (MMEIRS), a 7.2-magnitude earthquake from the West Valley Fault will result in the collapse of 170,000 residential houses and the death of 34,000 people. Another 114,000 individuals will be injured while 340,000 houses will be partly damaged. At least seven bridges will fall while 10 percent of public buildings will be heavily damaged.

Thirty kilometers’ worth of electric cables will be cut and 95 kilometers of communication cables will be disconnected. Cellular phone service will be congested and out of use. The 4,615 kilometers of water distribution pipes will suffer 4,000 points of breakage. Worse, the metro area may lose Angat Dam, source of over 90 percent of metro water. Angat Dam is on top of the fault line.

The metro area could split into four parts with no means to get from one to another due to fires, collapsed structures and broken road networks — old Manila constitutes the western portion; Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela in the north; Las Piñas, Makati, Muntinlupa, Parañaque, Pasay, Pateros and Taguig in the south; and Marikina, Mandaluyong, Pasig, Quezon City and San Juan in the east. Ambulances will be unable to get through the streets and bodies will be lined along the road.

Even without the threat of the Big One, old Manila is sinking and very densely populated. If our officials had any sense of responsibility at all, they would be doing more than earthquake drills. Strong steps must be taken to decrease the area’s population density to make the numbers more manageable. Our officials should stop just twiddling their thumbs and start moving the national government center to Clark or elsewhere.

Indonesia also has the same problem of a capital city that is sinking fast and a population that has grown exponentially. The Jakarta metropolitan area is home to 30 million people and it is rapidly sinking due to overpopulation. Excessive groundwater withdrawals have contributed to subsidence rates of six inches per year, and 40 percent of the city is now below sea level.

Jakarta’s problems are similar to ours: frequent flooding, heavy traffic, hazardous air pollution and drinking water shortages. President Joko Widodo, more action oriented than any of our presidents, decided to create a new national capital from scratch. It will be in East Kalimantan, Indonesia’s biggest island that’s largely undeveloped.

Widodo launched the initiative to move the capital in 2019 and the House only needed five months of deliberation to come up with the Law authorizing it. Widodo, who picked the name Nusantara (meaning archipelago) for the capital city, envisions that it will be fully operational in 2045 when Indonesia celebrates its 100th independence anniversary.

Of course, it will be a big challenge and rather expensive, more so than if we moved NCR to Clark. But Indonesia’s President has a strong bias for action. There will be political problems implementing it. But moving fast is essential. In our case, we habitually ask JICA to commission a study and after maybe five to ten years, have a big ceremony as the study is turned over to NEDA. Then the study is tossed in a filing cabinet somewhere and we will continue to wallow in our miseries.

That’s the story of our lives.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X or Twitter @boochanco