The Philippines' waterloos: typhoons and calamities

Last week's Super Typhoon Carina brought tremendous devastation to Luzon, in terms of loss of multiple lives lost, incalculable damage to properties, far-reaching destruction of infrastructure, and agricultural assets and installations, and billions in economic and financial losses to the country and to the people. Above all, Carina exposed the government and the people again for our joint notorious incompetence and patent disaster unpreparedness, as if we were not located in the Pacific typhoon belt and ring of fire.

The Filipinos never learn. The local and even national leaders remain clueless in the face of the usual heavy rains and rising water levels. The mayors have been unmasked again as incompetent, uncaring, and even notoriously negligent. They could not be found nor heard in the midst of heavy storms and rising floods inundating their cities and towns. Most of them might have been hiding inside the comfort of their palatial homes, watching Netflix perhaps and drinking wine, while the ordinary folks, the poor constituencies who put them in offices high and mighty, were stranded aboard jeepneys in the various streets in the metropolis. They are only good in radio and TV interviews claiming credit for the efforts of poor barangay officials and tanods who risked their lives saving others.

I know whereof I speak and write about. I was stranded in the middle of Roxas Boulevard before seven in the morning of July 24 and I could not move my car in front of the US Embassy heading to Intramuros because I had a scheduled hearing and my client must have been waiting for me in the lobby of the Hall of Justice. I was expecting the mayor of Manila to be visible and I expected to be hearing her nice voice, that should be instructing police officers to rescue people and untangle the gridlock that disabled thousands of vehicles from moving, all the way from Baclaran to Luneta. But, monitoring all radio stations, I could not hear her voice. And to be fair, none were from Makati, Pasay, and from Parañaque. All I heard was Mayor Joy Belmonte of Quezon City. And I salute her.

Well, we should not be blaming mayors for typhoons, I hasten to remind myself. But we should be raining issues on LGU leadership inadequacies in times of natural disturbances like that. There is no leadership visibility when people are crying for rescue and assistance. It is not enough that city governments distribute food packs and lend tents and rubber boats for transport. What matters most in such times of emergencies is a clear set of procedures, protocols, and SOPs, flawlessly executed by rescue workers and volunteers, and with the chief executives very visible to the people. That was not the first time we were confronted by such emergencies, and shall definitely not be the last. But our leaders and our people do not seem to learn at all.

What the senators and the congressmen should be addressing with a sense of urgency is a manual on natural calamity preparedness, a general guide on how to behave during typhoons, floods, earthquakes, fires, and volcanic eruptions. There should be a chapter for mayor's leadership protocols and another chapter for coordinating communication and information dissemination in times of emergencies. Both Houses of Congress should crack their heads in allocating funds for building strong, solid, and truly durable evacuation centers so that schools need not be invaded by typhoon victims and churches shall not be compelled to open their doors to poor evacuees.

There is a dearth of common sense among our political leaders and too much stupidity in the bureaucracies and LGUs. We should all be ashamed of ourselves. Typhoons have always been here every second and third quarters of the year since the times of Humabon and Lapulapu. But the Filipinos continue to wallow in mindless unpreparedness, negligence, and incompetence. Our leaders are no better. They always lull themselves into believing that leadership only means distributing food packets and sending out rubber boats.

Mayors and governors? Except for a few, I have no respect for these trapos. They never learn the meaning of leadership, much less servant leadership. Their talents are in politicking and unabashed political posturing. We should all change them in these upcoming local polls. There are far better leaders out there than our incumbent incompetents and uncaring trapos.