In harm’s way

When Super Typhoon Yolanda slammed the Philippines on Nov. 8, 2013, it first made landfall in the municipality of Guiuan in Eastern Samar.

The typhoon, with its apocalyptic storm surges, literally flattened much of Eastern Visayas. The few coconut trees that managed to remain standing had wilted palm fronds that dangled forlornly, like the many residents clinging to airport chain link fences with wide, desperate eyes, waiting to be airlifted out of hell.

I went to the region a few times with military forces from different countries, who were providing emergency rescue and relief in those first days when the Aquino administration seemed shell-shocked by the disaster.

Guiuan was a wasteland. The Americans, with their cargo planes and highly maneuverable Ospreys, operated the ruined airport on the island using portable communication devices.

Around the typhoon-hit areas, fishermen couldn’t resume their livelihood for several weeks, even with the weather all cleared up, because their boats were destroyed. People avoided fish from the area anyway, fearing that the fish might have ingested human flesh – the missing who were carried out to sea by the storm surge.

How much has changed since then?

Disaster experts had warned that it would take years to rebuild from that kind of devastation. After 11 years, are Guiuan and the rest of Eastern Samar fully recovered? Did the province build back better – the buzz phrase at the time among the emergency and relief teams?

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Eastern Samar Gov. Ben Evardone won’t claim full recovery for the province. Housing programs in particular aren’t complete, Evardone told “Storycon” on One News last Friday as his province was again threatened by Super Typhoon Ofel, on the heels of the damage from Severe Tropical Storm Kristine, with Pepito barreling closer.

He said housing projects were developed to relocate inland those in harm’s way – mostly residents of fishing villages along the coast. Offhand the move makes sense, but the houses remain unoccupied.

Those who depend on the sea for a living don’t want to move out of the coastal areas, Evardone explained. The fisherfolk are fully aware that the country’s eastern seaboard faces the Pacific Ocean and the province is therefore at high risk of being directly hit regularly by tropical cyclones and powerful storm surges. But they see the risks as hazards of the trade.

We heard similar stories from local officials in November 2020, when massive flooding hit Cagayan whose eponymous river – the country’s longest – overflowed following seven successive typhoons: Ofel, Pepito, Quinta, Rolly, Siony, Tonyo and Ulysses. The nationwide death toll from Ulysses alone stood at over 100.

LGU officials in Cagayan said residents were aware of the river overflowing regularly and causing cataclysmic flooding. But the valley is fertile and conducive particularly to planting rice, which needs a lot of water, while the mountains are a source of agroforestry livelihoods. So people refused to relocate away from the valley.

One of the LGUs officials had trees planted near the river to at least break the force of the floods. I don’t know if the trees survived to break the force of Ofel’s floods and now Pepito’s “catastrophic-level” winds.

As for the residents in the fishing communities of Eastern Samar, Evardone said the best that the local government can do when a storm approaches is to evacuate the residents along the coasts, mandatorily if necessary.

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And there lies another problem in the hoped-for building back better: the province still lacks structures that serve as permanent evacuation centers. One such building remains unfinished and could not be used during Kristine, Evardone said.

As in much of the country, Eastern Samar still relies mainly on school buildings for evacuation during disasters. This is despite repeated appeals from different secretaries of education to stop using schools as evacuation centers.

The lack of decent evacuation centers is one of the reasons why people refuse to leave their homes even when a powerful typhoon approaches. They have seen the lack of privacy, even with tents provided per family, plus the inadequacy of sanitation facilities, which can promote the spread of diseases. They worry about where to keep beloved pets at the evacuation center; many households across income classes in our country now keep dogs and cats.

They also worry about burglars if they abandon their homes, of leaving behind their livestock in their yard. Even one pig or a pair of chickens or goats can be precious for a family. A common practice is to leave one household member to stand guard at home while the rest evacuate.

If you tell them that they could die if they don’t evacuate, they will give a fatalistic shrug, or else pray that the typhoon won’t turn out to be as powerful as predicted.

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Evardone is hoping for an amendment to budget laws, to allow low-income local government units to spend calamity funds before disaster strikes, instead of LGUs waiting for the disaster to pass and then declaring a state of calamity to speed up fund releases.

Under normal procedures, it takes about a month for funds to be released, Evardone told Storycon. Declaring a state of calamity allows immediate fund release and utilization.

He wants such speedy fund disbursement even for disaster preparations, such as for providing food packs and other relief goods and services to evacuees.

The problem is that not all tropical cyclones turn out to be destructive enough to warrant the declaration of a state of calamity. And the country has had too many experiences with the misuse of any public fund that bypasses normal disbursement procedures.

Over the weekend, Pepito pounded Catanduanes and Camarines Sur, two of the provinces that often serve as welcome mats for Pacific tropical cyclones.

We will surely hear a lot again about improving disaster responses, with a bit of blame game thrown in. But after picking up the pieces of what Pepito has left behind, people will go back to the high-risk coastal areas, resuming their livelihoods and refusing to move to safer areas far from the ocean.

If another super typhoon strikes, their attitude is, the sea provides, and the sea takes what it wants.