Politicians must heed disaster scientists

Bureaucrats kept chorusing on news radio this week to set aside reproach and aid first the Cagayan de Oro-Iligan flood victims. That, of course, is so they conveniently can evade blame for the huge casualties.

For, once again national and local officials were caught flatfooted in the face of calamity. Disaster response was slow and confused. There were no flood warnings, no rescue preparations. In the emergency they had insufficient water, medicines and clothes to distribute. They didn’t even have distribution plans; some stricken communities received triple rations while others got none. Uncooked rice initially was handed out to shivering victims whose homes had just collapsed and so had no cooking implements. As usual there were no real evacuation shelters, as chapels and schoolhouses people are used to running to went underwater. Body bags and portable latrines were nowhere to be found.

It’s as if they never heard of, to draw lessons from, similar tragedies. As if Ormoc, Ginsaugon, San Francisco (Southern Leyte), Infanta-Real, Agusan, Surigao, Albay, Metro Manila from Ondoy, and Central Luzon from Pepeng never happened.

Government men would make people believe it was all an act of God. Supposedly high tide and heavy rain conspired in the dead of night to swamp rooftops in valleys that never before have experienced deluge or downpour. While that coincidence of nature is true, they are glossing over the man-made factors: clogged waterways, bald mountainsides, and unplanned urban expansion.

Barangay leaders were one in disavowing any logging in their locales, blaming instead those in faraway Muslim Autonomous Region. But undeniably freshly cut timber slid down the mountains with tons of mud and boulders, toppling the houses and bridges below. Mining in the uplands, panning in rivers, and squatting on creek sides — all officially abetted — had over-silted and clogged the water and floodways.

Oh but the officials do not wish to talk about all this, insisting they’re busy helping the victims. They’re like the provincial governor who was quick to blame recent floods to dam supervisors. It turned out, however, that the real cause was the clogging, with illegal fish pens, of rivers leading out of the flood plains to the sea. The governor’s wife owns some of the non-taxpaying river enterprises.

* * *

Now it turns out that geoscientists and ecologists accurately had forecast as far back as 2009 the flood and its causes in Cagayan de Oro-Iligan. Just that, politicians dismissed them as alarmists. While political leaders must oversee disaster management, they have to let scientists do the planning.

Like, Dr. Antonio Leachon has long been denouncing ignorance and ineptitude as the causes of never-ending tragedies on land, air and sea. Swimming and first aid lessons in schools can save lives, for starters. Moreover, he says, “Officials can’t seem to devise good plans from tragic lessons.” They depend on the private sector when disaster strikes, but do not involve it in strategic planning.

Urban planner Felino Palafox Jr., too has long drafted policies to prepare for, cope with, and lessen casualties of earthquakes, floods, and fires. All of 60 points, submitted to Malacañang in 1979 and to Congress in 2009, his paper includes such details as:

• using safe alternatives to kerosene, wood and candles in communities where huts are built close to each other on soft ground;

• securing open spaces, like parks and highways, for firebreaks and evacuation sites;

• designating disaster-proof living zones by integrating roads, waterways and parks in the design of buildings resistant to earthquakes, floods and fires, even in areas proximate to volcanoes and tsunamis;

• storing food, water, emergency rescue and medical aid systems; and

• digging flood-control ponds, and enabling sewers to store water.

Psychologists also propose therapy for hundreds of thousands of indigent Filipinos, especially children, who lost loved ones and homes to violence and calamities. Local officials usually think they’ve done with them after feeding and housing the victims for a while. They forget that the effects on emotions and psychological makeup are longer lasting.

* * *

The transportation department and NGOs will be holding a forum on preventing road fatality sometime January 2012. (In 2010 thirty-five Filipinos died each day in road accidents.) Road safety advocate Arnel Doria is calling on survivors to participate, share their experiences, and meet other victims. E-mail him your full name and contact info, at [email protected], so a formal invitation can be dispatched.

Reader Cristino M. Collado supports Ninfa Gutierrez about honoring Andres Bonifacio (Gotcha, 12 Dec. 2011). Filipinos should stop calling his park “Lawton”. But we also have to go by the Filipino habit of using shorter names (the reason we have doorbell nicknames), Collado says: “Like, that long stretch of parking lot has been reduced to ‘EDSA’. You wouldn’t catch anybody wasting tongue energy to say, ‘Grabe ang traffic sa Epifanio de los Santos Avenue!’ Boni Avenue in Mandaluyong wasn’t originally named Bonifacio Avenue. But even if it were, hardly anyone mentions ‘Avenue’. Jeepney barkers just say, ‘Boni, Boni!’ Back to that area fronting the Central Post Office, one way to delete ‘Lawton’ from the people’s mind is to do away with (former Manila mayor) Antonio Villegas’s purist Tagalog; let’s just call it Plaza Bonifacio instead of Liwasang Andres Bonifacio. By the way, thanks for your exposés; they’re beginning to work on the conscience of our officials.”

* * *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

E-mail: [email protected]