Managing a disaster

After almost three weeks of displaying eruptive signs from unleashing smoke, followed by steaming lava flows, and pushing out hot rocks and other volcanic materials, Mt. Mayon have spewed out enough. In fact, Mayon has been indicating it’s calming back to its normal state. Albay folks, especially residents along areas declared as permanent danger zones, are the most relieved and happy people as Mayon has spared their lands from destruction.

Residents within the seven to eight-km permanent danger zone were among the first ones sent back to their homes after the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) lowered last week the Alert Level from 4 to 3. The Provincial Disaster Coordinating Council headed by Albay Governor Joey Salceda started “de-camping” a total of 7,218 families staying in 20 different evacuation centers a few days after the volcano calmed down. The evacuees were only too happy they could return to their respective homes and live their normal day-to-day existence in their farms, once again. 

Many of these families actually refused to leave their homes even during the heightened volcanic activities of Mayon. Gov. Salceda had to deputize the police and military to make sure those residents holding out in the danger zones were brought to safety. Their refusal to evacuate in the face of imminent danger was understandable because they were being asked to leave their homes and farms where they have poured their lifetime of hard work and savings.       

However, those families who live within the 4 to 6-km permanent danger zone are still being discouraged from going back to their homes. These are about 2,728 families who will continue to stay at the evacuation centers run by the PDCC.

Before Christmas when Mayon first started signs of restiveness, the PDCC had evacuated around a total of 10,000 families or 46,064 residents from 31 villages around Mayon. The provincial government under the leadership of Gov. Salceda deserved credit for a well-organized and well-implemented risk disaster mitigation measures.

Despite constraints and limited resources, we have seen how a well-managed local disaster plan could save lives and achieve a zero-casualty goal. But implementing such effective disaster management program definitely costs a lot of money.

The provincial government has to feed thousands of families during these 21 days while they were in the evacuation center. Based on this latest Mayon experience, the technocrat in Gov. Salceda tells him they must find a more cost-effective disaster risk reduction program. They have tested already that an early warning system could give them enough lead time to evacuate people in the danger zones before Mayon could erupt. This way, premature evacuation will be minimized.  

Likewise, the provincial government of Albay is working out a scheme to permanently relocate some 1,000 families that have settled within Mayon’s danger zone despite the volcano’s unpredictable restiveness. For now, Mayon folks move on with their lives until the next eruption.

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In my previous month’s column about “Senatorship,” my fellow STAR columnist and good friend, Andy Bautista called my attention that I missed out one of the 12 senatorial candidates of the Liberal Party (LP) who happened to be his elder brother, Dr. Martin Bautista. Mea culpa! May I therefore give the following space for my un-intended lapse to reprint a “blog” of LP’s senatorial candidate, “Dr. Balikbayan” to introduce himself to the Filipino voters for their consideration when election time comes in May.

“My blog readers know who I am — a 47-year old Filipino physician who, after studying, training and running a successful medical practice for almost 20 years in the U.S. has now returned to his country. I am, and am proud to be, a Balikbayan.

Friends have asked: Why?

“You have a wonderful life in America,” they say. “You were featured on US national television as an outstanding Asian. You’re at the top of your profession. Why become a Dr. Balikbayan?”

In my mind I have asked myself the same question. The answer is difficult to explain, and for some, more difficult to understand.

No Filipino, in or out of the country is unaware of the stark reality that confronts all of us. At this time the Philippines has a higher poverty level than most countries on earth. Our government is considered to be more corrupt than even the most chaotic African nations.

But as a physician what pains me most deeply is the terrible fact that more and more Filipinos are dying for no other reason than that they lack medical care. By the thousands, mothers die at childbirth. Children die of curable infectious diseases. People are ill and they have no one to turn to.

I cannot accept this. I must do something. I owe it to myself, to my vocation as physician, and to my fellow Filipinos. This is why I left America and am now Dr. Balikbayan.

Recently I joined the brave and honorable cause of Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas whose aim is not only to reform but to transform the Philippines. To this I have committed myself.

I am not a politician nor do I intend ever to be one. I am an experienced physician trained to help and save lives. But rather than treat individual patients by the handful, I believe I can be more useful, do more good by extending medical care to millions of Filipinos who have neither the knowledge nor the means to fight disease and prolong life.

I realize I cannot do this alone. Neither can Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas. All our leaders from Lapulapu with his band of Cebuano warriors to Cory Aquino with her heroes at Edsa needed the whole-hearted, unsparing involvement of men and women willing to seek, struggle, and if necessary, sacrifice to attain the fulfillment of a common aspiration.

I shall do my part, play a role, perhaps a small one, in the sweeping movement that calls all Filipinos at home and abroad together, growing in strength and number, gaining momentum to turn itself into the transformative power that will change our country and generations of our countrymen.

So I move on, move forward, move toward a horizon bright with the promise of the good years to come for all Filipinos across space and time.

Dr. Balikbayan is home.”