"It is not difficult to understand why typhoons in recent years have been very destructive."
When it rains, it pours. Three typhoons, one after the other in less than a month, brought devastation to a people already suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic. Typhoons hitting our country’s landmass have been more frequent and destructive in recent years. This, according to climatologists is all because of climate change and the warming of seawater. We should, therefore, be expecting more destructive typhoons in the future.
The question is, what are we doing about it. We have had “Ondoy” followed by “Yolanda” and now, “Rolly” and “Ulysses” and still we seem not to have learned anything from our tragic past experiences. Both “Rolly” and “Ulysses” once again demonstrated that when nature unleashes its fury, there is nothing much that we humans can do. By this time, however, our country should have already perfected emergency response procedures. But as we can see, we seem to be stuck in a time warp. It is the same script being played out every time there is a natural calamity. First is the rescue and relief followed by rehabilitation and then the formation of Task Forces then everything getting stuck in red tape until the next disaster strikes. It is as if people and the government are conspiring to make it harder for ourselves every time there is a natural disaster.
I do not wish to sound like a broken record, but these recent typhoons should be a sober reminder to the government to be unforgiving in protecting our dwindling natural resources. The trees on our mountains that help hold water have all but disappeared. Add the destruction brought about by uncontrolled mining and quarrying, and it is not hard to understand why typhoons in recent years have been very destructive.
Government must focus on preventing people from insisting on building their dwellings in dangerous places such river banks, slide prone mountains slopes, and sea shores. If the government can only impose strictly building regulations, then perhaps we will not be seeing so much misery every time there is a natural calamity. Unfortunately, the government has been unable to prevent people from building their dwellings in dangerous and prohibited places. We in this country also seem to put our main efforts to the after-disaster activities rather than the before the disaster activities.
There is a saying in the military which is very applicable to disaster management that “the more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war.” In the aftermath of “Rolly” and “Ulysses,” President Duterte once again formed a Task Force to handle rescue, relief and rehabilitation but with due respect to the President, it would save time if he simply directs the concerned government agencies to do what they are mandated to do in order to speed up the process.
What is urgently needed right now several days after the disaster is focus on locating the missing people and the clean-up effort in the different flooded communities to facilitate government efforts. There is also a need to do a proper survey of how many people lost their dwellings so that they can be moved by the government to safe relocation areas and not be allowed to go back to their old areas. Otherwise, we will be witnessing the same script next time we have another natural calamity.
This brings to mind the much-debated subject whether to establish a separate department to handle disaster management. Congress as we know is lukewarm to the proposal, fearing the creation of another department will unnecessarily enlarge government bureaucracy which will waste more government resources without really accomplishing much. But given the frequency and destructiveness of natural calamities nowadays, it is time to do an in-depth study for the possibility of organizing such an agency. Besides, such an agency does not have to follow the traditional organizational structures of current government departments. As we can see, current government capabilities are clearly not enough. If it were, there would be no need to be organizing task forces. Congress must not shut its door to the creation of such a department and should commission an ad-hoc body to study the feasibility. If in the end, that body will recommend against it and just strengthen the current structure, then so be it. But right now, we need something a lot more responsive than the current system that we have.
Part of our problem as Filipinos is that we are so personality centered instead of creating a well-oiled system that can function efficiently regardless of who is the Boss. As they say, when an organization is created, that body must be organized, trained and equipped to be able to accomplish its assigned mission. More importantly, it must have the resources to be able to perform its functions. Otherwise, it will fail.