What happens next?

The sun’s out. The kids (or most of them) are back in school. A weeklong horror story is over... for now, at least.

But some of the evacuation centers are still full. The flood in some lakeshore towns won’t recede until Christmas. The root causes of the calamitous flood are still there. And Ate Glue has declared a year long state of calamity which is no big deal since we have suffered nine long years of undeclared state of calamity anyway. I suspect it is just a brazen “last two minutes” effort to flood some people’s bank accounts.

What happens next?

The Philippines, a New York Times article observes, is prone to landslides, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. “But, the experts say, it is also one of the most ill-prepared and ill-equipped countries to deal with disasters.” Nakakahiya pero totoo. Why is this so?

Corrupt and inept politicians we elect are to blame. But we also have to look at the big picture. Our politicians aggravate poverty, underperforming economy, galloping population growth rate that are at the roots of our problems.

We make do in normal times. But when calamities happen, the consequences of corruption, neglect, ineptitude all show with devastating impact.

So, what happens next?

First item in the agenda ought to be the rehabilitation of the flood victims. They cannot stay in the evacuation centers forever. What are the plans for transitioning them to normal life? For many, they have no more homes to go back to. Many also have no livelihoods and were probably not eating regularly before the floods came. Some of them commented that at now at the evacuation centers, they are eating at least three meals a day.

I remember in a past calamity that devastated Quezon province, Gina Lopez reserved some of the money raised during the crisis for rehabilitation. For instance, fishermen who lost their bancas were given the resources to buy new ones as well as other fishing gear. Gina made sure they are able to stand on their own again so that the relief side of her operation can exit without leaving the victims to suffer the same problems they had before the storm.

I understand that is also what they plan to do this time specially for those who used to live beside waterways. But the task of rehabilitating the victims of Ondoy is a big one that will require more resources than any one Foundation can muster.

The private sector and the government will have to work together on this one. That is why it is counterproductive for the text brigade of Malacañang to continually snipe on the private sector foundations as a means of diverting attention from official ineptitude.

Ate Glue will have to come to grips with the reality that the calamity happened in her watch even if the failure of all the past administrations to do the right things also contributed to last week’s calamity. Ate Glue cannot deny she has a lot to answer for.

Raissa Robles recalled in her article at the South China Morning Post that after thousands died in a devastating typhoon in 2004, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo pledged “never again”, ordering the deployment of advanced Doppler radars capable of detecting the scale of potential rainfall.

About five years after the devastation in Quezon that claimed 1,800 lives, the Doppler radars that could have given us warning on the unusually large volume of rainfall, have just been ordered and won’t be ready until December at the earliest.

Ted Failon had been raising the Doppler controversy months (or even a few years) before Ondoy. His account, which Pagasa’s Prisco Nilo never denied is that someone powerful intervened and wanted to overprice the Dopplers. Because of the attempted overprice, the bidding failed. The powerful guy backed off and allowed Pagasa to handle the procurement itself. The bidding was eventually done, and the orders placed, but only after considerable delay.

So now she has ordered a “permanent solution” to the problem of informal settlers and that the waterways cleared of them. Is this just for press release again?

Indeed, everyone is watching to see if there is now more political will to enforce existing laws on housing and zoning. Rock Drilon posted this Facebook comment of Rodolfo Severino: “Settlements have everything to do with the Philippines’ housing problem. There should also be laws against settlements on flood plains. If there aren’t, what are the politicians doing? If there are but they are not being enforced, this raises questions about incompetence or corruption or both.”

More specifically, what will they do about such places as Provident Village that’s susceptible to killer floods and potentially to a killer earthquake too? It would be difficult to declare it a no man’s land because that would entail serious economic consequences on those who bought property there.

Because people will most likely insist on continuing to live there, local officials should figure out what mitigation measures are appropriate to prevent the nightmare of the other Saturday from happening again. Maybe some kind of flood control infrastructure can be constructed to protect Provident and other flood prone Marikina and Cainta subdivisions.

Most definitely, it is imperative to institute contingency procedures... evacuation exercises... rubber boats on the ready at all times... an effective village association leadership that can take immediate command in an emergency. And they should be prepared not just for floods but earthquakes too since the very active Marikina fault is just there.

Then there are the big ticket items that government must prioritize. LLDA GM Edgar Manda was complaining about how shallow Laguna Lake has become. What we perhaps need is a plan for Laguna de Bay that includes dredging, managing the fishpens and human settlements around it and yes, reforesting the mountains whose storm run-offs end up in the lake.

The other big ticket project is clearing river/estero banks of squatters. Both sides of the Manggahan Floodway must also be squatter free. The task isn’t as impossible as it looks. Again, the example of Gina Lopez comes to mind. She has actually cleared some banks of Manila esteros of squatters some months ago and moved them to a resettlement area in Calauan, Laguna as part of the Pasig River clean up effort.

But she will not just dump and forget the resettled squatters there. What makes this different is the attitude of Gina to view the squatter families with compassion. With the help of Vice President Noli de Castro, she has actually set up a community there complete with such facilities as a school for the children. She has also made sure there will be livelihood for them there.

She convinced Ramon Ang of San Miguel to not just donate land adjacent to the resettlement area but to also ensure livelihood for the settlers. In other words, she is implementing measures learned from past mistakes in government resettlement efforts. If it works for the squatters resettled from Estero de Paco, it could be a model that could be more widely adopted.

The other thing to do is review zoning laws on the basis of a sensible land use policy. Meliton B. Juanico, a geographer and environmental planner at the University of the Philippines, told the New York Times that the lack of political will meant that rules were often unenforced by the government. He pointed to the approval of housing and development projects in unauthorized areas such as the slopes of the Sierra Madre in Rizal Province, one of the areas worst hit by Ketsana.

The point is... government must be consistent at all levels in the enforcement of land use laws. Environmental Planner Felino Palafox Jr told ANC in a live interview: “You see the irony here. National government agencies are aware that there is a flooding level of so many meters, then another national government agency would approve subdivision plans for only nine-meter high houses. There are about 32 signatures to obtain just to do a development project. It’s like an obstacle course... yet...” Of course local governments grant building permits with no regard to such warnings in government studies.

I am almost sure that after one more week of sunshine, we will be back to monkey business as usual... Politicians who were scared of the calamity’s political backlash a few days ago will again be sleeping soundly. And when the next super typhoon or earthquake happens, the NDCC and local disaster committees will be as the police beat reporters in my time would put it... mahuhuling natutulog sa pansitan.

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I noted this comment on Facebook from a Karen K.

What are the politicians doing?

1. Running around in circles in a big daze.

2. Buying liquor.

3. Putting stickers on other people’s donations.

4. Waiting for photo op... with the exception of a few I see truly hauling ass without fanfare.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. This and some past columns can also be viewed at www.boochanco.com