Deluge

We never loved our storms.

Many years ago, an idiot in Congress (a truly resilient breed) proposed legislation to outlaw typhoons. The bill did not prosper.

One perennial presidential contender promised to build a plastic dome over the entire archipelago to protect us from severe weather. Since the politician never won any elective post, the engineering requirements for such a project were never worked out.

We remain at the mercy of typhoons.

When they come, they remind us of the vulnerabilities we collect as the population outstrips carrying capacity, as settlements push up the slopes and as our forest cover recedes. As global climate warms, we expect weather disturbances to become more severe.

The most dramatic aspect of a typhoon is the wind. Its most murderous aspect, however, is the water.

Storm surges and sustained rainfall devastate coastal settlements, deluge farm areas and submerge cities. In 2009, a relatively unremarkable storm called Ondoy gathered enough monsoon clouds and drowned large parts of the metropolitan area.

Yolanda breaks all records for the fury of its winds and the ruthlessness of its storm surges. It hit precisely at the Leyte Gulf that seems designed to heighten the surge from the sea. Thousands perished, some of them missing to this day.

The anxiety about Ompong, now bearing down on Northern Luzon, is that its wind strength approaches that of Yolanda and its circulation appears to replicate that of Ondoy. We can only hope for the best while preparing for the worst.

Missing

After two decades, the Congress fails to pass a National Land Use Plan.

This plan might clearly designate land reserved for agriculture and land allowed for commercial or residential use. It might also designate high-risk areas and prohibit human settlement in them. It should serve as a zoning plan on a national scale.

Without such a plan, we continue in the haphazard manner we are used to. We shift fertile land from agriculture to property development. We build where we should not. We fail to secure the waterways and wetlands.

Boracay is a microcosm of where a weak state has failed in administering its most basic resource. In that over-exploited tourist island, the wetlands and forests were stolen in plain sight. Wastewater was hardly managed, with much of it allowed to drain to the sea. No study was done of the island’s carrying capacity and resorts were simply allowed to proliferate.

That was until President Duterte took the bold and unprecedented move of shutting down the profitable tourism destination. The hypocritical and the shortsighted hewed and hawed. But as the illegal drainage pipes that dumped toilet waste to the pristine beach were dug up, we are all now convinced this island had truly become a cesspool.

There is merit in the proposal to put Boracay and other similar tourist destination under some national agency. Left under the control of inept local governments, the wealthy vested interests simply overwhelmed the puny local government. So much for federalism.

Another thing missing is the floodway that is supposed to help drain Laguna de Bay to the sea. Decades ago, a plan was drawn up for a floodway straight to Manila Bay, cutting through Paranaque and Las Pinas. But property developers beat government to the gun. Today, we will have to bulldoze through prosperous subdivisions to put that floodway in place.

When Ondoy deluged the metropolis, we realized that a major part of the problem was due to the inability of Laguna de Bay to hold much water and to efficiently drain water to the sea. A major program was launched to drain both the lake and the Pasig River – the only exit to the bay.

The contract, supported with EU funding, was awarded to a respected Belgian firm. The plan was to dredge the lake and use the material to build a circumferential freeway. That would have simultaneously improved the capacity of the lake to hold water and relieve traffic congestion in the southern and eastern ends of the metropolitan area. 

When Noynoy Aquino took power, he abruptly cancelled the perfected contract with the Belgian firm. The aggrieved firm went to arbitration. The Philippine government lost. Now we have to pay the Belgian firm billion while suffering the cancellation of a project that would have relieved a lot of the flooding.

Should the towns around the Laguna de Bay be deluged again, blame Noynoying.

Redundancies

We have learned much from previous calamities where government response all but failed.

According to the NDRRMC, plans have been laid out for second- and third-responders to swing into action when the first-responders are overwhelmed. Recall that at the height of Yolanda, the rescue teams in place became victims themselves. Mar Roxas, Noynoy’s point person on the ground, forgot to bring the satellite phone issued him. That so poignantly condenses the general incompetence that marred government’s response to a major calamity.

Today, the NDRRMC assures us that there is redundancy in everything: the prepositioned stockpile of relief goods, the communications systems that enable responders to act in concert, and the second- and third-liner rescue teams. We will have to take their word on that.

 In the face of natural calamity, the first lines of civil defense are the local governments. They have been trained to perform under severe duress over the past few years. To the best government can, they have been equipped to respond effectively.

Ompong will be the first real test of large-scale rescue and relief since Yolanda overwhelmed all of us.