“Compounding these problems is the inability of the LGUs of NCR to control squatting and prevent informal settlers from dumping their waste into the waterways and the drainage system”
WHAT does it take for government and the public to be more ready to respond to natural calamities like Typhoon Carina to lessen the cost of human suffering?
With an average of 19 typhoons visiting the country every year with one or two causing considerable devastation, we would think that our preparedness would be solid and efficient.
But as we have seen once again with Typhoon Carina, this was not the case.
We have not really learned much from Typhoons Ondoy and Yolanda. And what we are now witnessing just days after the storm is exactly the same in the aftermath of Ondoy 15 years ago.
Many investigations and promises. After a while, back to normal.
So, whose fault was it for the lack of preparation in responding to Carina?
To be sure, there is a lot of blame to go around.
Maybe the engineering works are not up to standards.
If anything, Carina proved the drainage system of the National Capital Region is inadequate capacity wise.
The size of the drains being used must be calculated in relation to the average rainfall for the drainage system to carry the volume of water passing thru it.
Right now, however, even just a couple of hours of moderate rain would flood many portions of the NCR road system, causing so much traffic gridlock which is a sign there is indeed an engineering problem.
Perhaps the sizes of the drains are not big enough.
Of course, as the MMDA Chairman reasoned out, the amount of rain that fell in the last typhoon was simply too much.
But this does not excuse the lack of preparation on the part of agencies handling disaster management.
It is not as if Carina was the first one. We have had many devastating typhoons before that should have taught us valuable lessons.
Yet, we never seem to have learned anything from them.
Compounding these problems is the inability of the LGUs of NCR to control squatting and prevent informal settlers from dumping their waste into the waterways and the drainage system.
People are allowed to construct dwellings on riverbanks and creeks which should absolutely be prohibited.
Those who live in very congested areas which includes streets, which have been transformed as dwelling places, dispose their garbage on the drainage system, thereby clogging and exacerbating the problem.
The plight of the informal settlers is understandable considering widespread poverty but there should be situations that must not be allowed to be violated for the good of all.
One of these is the prohibition where informal settlers can put up temporary dwellings for their own protection.
In a word, we need discipline.
Otherwise, it will always be like Ondoy and Carina every time there are typhoons of such magnitude passing thru the country.
The phrases we often hear nowadays from everyone are climate change and long term solutions.
For climate change, a warmer earth would generate stronger typhoons, more rains and rising sea levels. Long term solutions involves engineering projects that could mitigate flooding but as we have seen during Carina, the system failed.
What we seem to forget is a big part of the problem is the unrestricted deep well diggings all over the NCR which are causing the lower portions of the metropolitan area to sink a few millimeters or centimeters every year and nothing much is being done about this silent problem.
A couple of millimeters or centimeters may not be much for a year but over the years the shrinkages can be substantial.
And with the rising sea levels, flooding would always indeed be a huge problem in the coming years for the NCR unless we get our act together.
Perhaps, all concerned government agencies should conduct a thorough inspection and review of the entire NCR drainage system to see if there are some weaknesses that needs improvement or changes. The cleaning or declogging of drainages should also not only be done during the onset of the rainy season but a regular Barangay activity.
It still shocks me that many of us do not know how to dispose garbage properly.
