Symptom

AAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi should not have been in Idlib province in northwestern Syria. This was an area dominated by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group formerly linked to Al Qaeda, formerly known as the Nusra Front.

There is no love lost between al-Baghdadi and the fighters of the Nusra Front. They had fought many bloody battles before.

The rival jihadists were fearful al-Baghdadi could take away their supporters. They were responsible for the capture of some of al-Baghdadi’s key aides, including the one who gave Iraqi intelligence key information about the terrorist leader’s whereabouts.

But al-Baghdadi had little choice. His former base at the ancient city of Mosul has been reduced to rubble and his bastion at Raqqa has been overrun. Vulnerable as he might have been in Idlib, it was the only place he felt he was beyond the reach of American, Syrian, Iraqi and Kurdish forces out to get him dead or alive.

Donald Trump, eager to score a win in a sea of political losses, claims it took two weeks to determine al-Baghdadi’s location and launch the commando operation that took him out. The leader of the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, on the other hand, admitted the operation was five months in the making.

The key development appears to be the capture earlier this year of Abu Suleiman al-Khalidi by fighters of the Nusra Front. Al-Khalidi was turned over to the Turkish forces. The Turks eventually turned him over to Iraqi intelligence. From that point on, al-Baghdadi was a sitting duck, monitored by spies on the ground and surveillance equipment from the sky.

To be sure, the elimination of al-Baghdadi is something for all to celebrate. He had led a terrorist movement unmatched in its appetite for brutality. That movement drew strength not only from the fanatical fighters it once had on the ground but also from stray followers it attracted on social media that were willing to undertake violence on their own.

Al-Baghdadi designated himself the “caliph” of all Islamic communities and claimed to be a descendant of the prophet. He began an effort to rebuild the old caliphate that was the Ottoman Empire. When his group controlled territory in Iraq and Syria, they were able to commandeer oil supplies and use the revenue to fund their brand of violence. They were able to influence the actions of fellow travellers from California to Marawi, in part by dangling the possibility of extending financial support to them.

Al-Baghdadi may be dead. But what he represented for his followers is far from extinguished.

This particular terrorist was not known a particularly charismatic nor is he an organizational genius. But he was able to grow a fanatical movement in the interstices of the ethnic and sectarian patchwork of that part of the world he found himself in, using the new power of social media to achieve his goals.

That mad patchwork of ideologies and identities remain basically intact.

Drought

We have not had a really good typhoon this year. That is the bad news.

At this time last year, the water level at Angat Dam was over 200 meters. That was followed by the brutal water shortage in the dry months that followed.

Today it is barely above the minimum operating level of 180 meters. Since last week, the two concessionaries have enforced water rationing.

No one knows when the Mega Manila area will have sufficient water again. It will probably be years. That is how long it will take to build the Kaliwa River Dam and bring its supplies online. Only new raw water sources will solve the shortage.

The Angat Dam, supplying 98 percent of Mega Manila’s water needs, was built when the population it was needed to serve was only a fraction of what it is now. During the El Nino years, the water it holds is chronically short. In the La Nina years, the dam overflows, adding to the flooding problem.

Over many decades, while Mega Manila’s population multiplied, no new raw water source was built. Those were the same decades where, under pressure from our debt overhang, the country spent less that half as a percentage of GDP that our neighbors were spending on new infrastructure.

The water problem we now experience was not totally unanticipated. It is pretty much like the traffic congestion we endure. In 1976, a team of urban planners including architect Jun Palafox put out a report detailing exactly what needed to be done to spare the metropolitan area from traffic congestion. Very little of the recommendations were actually done.

The water supply problem was easy to anticipate. The metropolitan population was growing rapidly. As this population became wealthier, their water needs multiplied. But it took too long for the government agencies going.

Building the Kaliwa River Dam was talked about earnestly during the Ramos years. That was a quarter of a century ago. The environmental clearance certificate for this project was issued only last week. It will take several years before Mega Manila wins water relief from this project.

Everything that besets us these days is traceable to a strange syndrome afflicting our systems of governance. Our agencies, it seems, are unable to respond until breakdown happens or a crisis strikes.

That transformer that burned, taking down services in three stations of the LRT-2 is so iconic in this regard. The oil for that transformer was supposed to have been replaced many years ago. But our procurement system appears incapable of accommodating preventive maintenance needs. The breakdown that happened multiplied economic costs and public inconvenience.