By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
Scenes of grieving victims and devastation wrought by typhoon Tino, especially in Cebu, tore into the hearts of every compassionate Filipino. It is the same scenario in previous typhoon-hit areas where floods rushed in, oftentimes in magnitude greater than the usual occurrences.
That’s in the last few years. Before, these were ascribed primarily to climate change. People just bounce back from them, invoking the indomitable spirit of ours called resilience. It is an “act of God”, some people thought as is a clause in property insurance agreements. That phrase, incidentally, is already changed into “act of nature”.
Now, at least in the last 5 months, the seemingly fiercer floods are immediately associated with ghost or sub-standard flood control projects. The misfortune of people from such floods are greatly magnified by the thought that the people who are supposed to serve them and help protect their welfare are actually the ones aggravating their sorry happenstance. They had become bantay-salakay. And they should pay the price of their wrongdoing.
These are the politicians, the so-called representatives in both the houses of Congress, who are in cahoots with officials in various government agencies, private individuals and possibly local politicians. Of course, many of them are of the clean type, though they may not be white as snow.
Just as many are those doing a Pontius Pilate, even threatening to put behind bars those who are unveiling their complicity in anomalies. They are the politicians and officials of no consequence to the people’s predicament. They are not confined to a certain province or region; they are everywhere.
What is highly disturbing is that we are now, more than ever, the butt of jokes internationally. Picking from our very free media, international news agencies are having a grand time putting us into a middle ages type of darkness, in their broadcasts.
We have all the right to vent our anger against anomalies, against perpetrators or facilitators of such intolerable acts that are happening. But we also have to do our share, starting with how we behave during election times; and who we voter for.
To pin the blame of the unfolding unacceptable situation on the present administration, is off-target.
In fact, the floods that we are now experiencing are both a function of climate change and our own actions. When nature discharges 200mm of rain in 2-3 days, that is so huge, we can hardly prevent flooding. Our average annual rainfall is about 2,000mm which, when distributed on a daily basis, amounts to less than six (6) mm/day.
In regions high with heavy industries, there will be more frequent or stronger typhoons or similar weather disturbances. This is nature’s way to create balance so the planet Earth will not veer away or be dislodged from its orbit. The changes in weather, or climate for that matter, are not exactly disturbances as we are wont to see them, but they are natural reactions to avoid total destructions.
Much of the heavy industries in Asia are found in Japan, China, Taiwan, South Korea, and now even Vietnam. That is why typhoons are generally more frequent in Northern and Central Luzon areas which are near those manufacturing countries. There is a need for a concerted effort worldwide to somehow mitigate the effect of the “disturbances”. Those mentioned countries, together with other similarly situated nations should actually indemnify affected countries like the Philippines.
Can we do something individually? Yes.
We can stop abusing our environment. For instance, we should dispose garbage properly and not just thrown anywhere. We should cut trees judiciously, not in wild abandon. We should plant more trees in our backyard where it is possible.
By the way, according to a university expert, the flood control projects which became a very convenient avenue for some politicians, other government officials, and enterprising private individuals to steel money from us, taxpayers are too expensive. He offered some inexpensive solutions to the flooding problem. Three of them are: planting more trees, construction of mini dams, and rain harvesting. These can easily be done. Along this line, I think the National Greening Program should be reviewed, reoriented and re-launched.**
