National survival

The Dutch are reputed to be the tallest people in the world. One look at Dennis Botman, resident representative of the International Monetary Fund, and his Singapore-based compatriot, World Bank chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific Bert Hofman (the Dutch are also credited with inventing capitalism) and you will agree. Talking at length with the two men can give you a stiff neck.

A common joke about the exceptional height is that over several centuries, Dutch genes adapted to the basic need of keeping their head above water in their perennially flooded country. One day soon perhaps Pinoy genes will also start adapting.

With the North Sea at their doorsteps, the Dutch became accomplished seafarers and shipbuilders.

Confronting the possibility that their low-lying land could be swallowed up by the sea, the Dutch developed an extensive system of land reclamation, water pumping and dike construction to keep out the water.

Their latest system was started after a powerful storm destroyed several dikes in February 1953. Over 1,800 people were killed in the flooding. It took 30 years to complete the massive “Delta Works” flood control project, which includes storm surge barriers, locks, dikes, levees, dams and sluices, but the Dutch say the odds of flooding anywhere in their country are now one in 10,000 years. Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, the world’s 12th busiest in terms of passenger traffic, sits on a polder or land reclaimed from a lake where many ships were lost in earlier times (Schiphol means “ship graveyard”).

The American Society of Civil Engineers declared Delta Works as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, along with the Panama Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Channel Tunnel between the UK and France, and Itaipu Dam between Brazil and Paraguay.

After Hurricane Katrina killed over 1,800 people in the United States in 2005, the US Congress invited Dutch engineers as resource persons in planning a long-term flood control program.

For the Dutch, flood control became a matter of national survival.

It should be the same for us Filipinos.

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Since I may no longer be around in 30 years, I will settle for an efficient warning system – for heavy rainfall, potential and actual flooding, and traffic bottlenecks.

The other night as storm “Helen” approached the country, traffic was again tied up on the southbound lanes of NAIA Road and Coastal Road.

Near the Coastal Road tollgate where southbound motorists can make a last-minute U-turn before heading into more heavy traffic, a motorcycle cop informed drivers that there was another huge traffic jam at the junction of Las Piñas and Cavite.

It may be too much to ask of the Public Estates Authority, which collects the toll on Coastal Road, to install large electronic billboards at both ends of the road and at the approaches to the tollbooths, providing regularly updated traffic advisories to the public. Cheap cardboard signs will do – large enough to be seen by motorists, with reflectorized paint for use at night. One word per cardboard, with the simple heading “traffic” will suffice: light, medium, heavy, detour.

This type of advisory needs regular monitoring by people equipped with basic handheld radios. For the system to work, there must also be efficient coordination among the traffic units of adjoining cities together with the PEA police. That kind of public service can save motorists a lot of grief.

Yesterday I was told that the traffic jams on Coastal Road and NAIA Road were due to numerous large potholes that motorists carefully avoided.

In the Information Age, I don’t know why traffic units around the country, or at least in contiguous cities and towns, cannot coordinate their work. Even without handheld radios with dedicated frequencies, practically everyone these days has a mobile phone that can be used for speedy communication to assist the public.

The Philippine National Police was created precisely to make law enforcement and other police functions a nationally coordinated effort. Yet police units in one city can’t even alert their colleagues in the next city to watch out for criminals headed their way on getaway vehicles.

In the Information Age, we still don’t have a central database for license plates on vehicles used in crimes. We don’t have a networked system by which plate numbers (plus physical descriptions, photos or video footage of suspects) can be flashed to all PNP units so fleeing crooks can be intercepted.

Catching crooks becomes even worse during heavy rains and floods, when it’s rare to see any cop or traffic aide in the streets.

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People are adapting to the times. Some architects are now proposing the construction of elevated houses on concrete stilts in flood-prone areas. This is fine for new construction, although there’s no rush to build new houses in areas that are already notoriously flood-prone. For existing structures, retrofitting for floods could cost as much as a new house.

On the lighter side, some women who are resigned to wading regularly in flooded streets are glad to see tall rubber boots in various prints and colors, apart from drab black and gray, now being sold in retail outlets.

More desirable than adapting to regular flooding, of course, is having an effective flood control system – one that doesn’t run out of fuel, literally, as a big pumping station in Taguig did at the height of the monsoon rains last week.

We can’t even install effective water pumping systems in several key underpasses such as Lagusnilad in Manila and the one in Quiapo, even if they turn into virtual swimming pools at every heavy downpour.

As of yesterday, several lakeside communities around Laguna de Bay remained flooded, with looters starting to enter empty houses. So it wasn’t those nasty plastic bags (banned for some time now) that are to blame for flooding in the south after all, although there’s talk that someone’s father has made a pile of money by cornering the paper bag manufacturing business.

The structures that have encroached on the Laguna de Bay floodplain are unlikely to be “blasted” out of existence, as P-Noy reportedly ordered his public works secretary.

The best that P-Noy can do under his watch is to lay the groundwork for a long-term, effective and comprehensive flood control program, to be completed long after his presidency is over. It doesn’t have to be as extensive as the Netherlands’ Delta Works.

In the meantime, we need minimum measures during natural calamities, including speedy evacuation and efficient warning systems.