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Friday, March 29, 2024

Tough luck yet again

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There is a philosophical way of viewing things that should assuage our feelings about all the tough luck we are getting. They say that God only gives one the trials and tests he can bear and withstand. This is perhaps why Filipinos are generally more prayerful than most other nationalities. For fear of trials and suffering they may not be able to bear, they look to a Merciful Almighty to spare them.

When their government fails them, or when trouble brews in the running of the affairs of the state, they hold prayer rallies led by the religious. I recall that late last year, when we had just commemorated the one year anniversary of the devastation of Tacloban, Eastern Samar and other Visayan provinces by Yolanda, another super typhoon as powerful as Yolanda was reported to be headed to, and about to enter the Philippine area of responsibility. Prayers by text messages quickly dominated nearly all networks and, as if by a miracle, the super typhoon did not actually make a landfall. Many attributed it to the prayers that reached the doors of heaven.

Now we have more reasons to pray. Last week a report from London came out that the risk and analysis firm, Verisk Maplecroft, showed that eight of the top 10 cities in the world most prone to natural disasters are found in the Philippines. What compounds the problem for our nation, the report said, is that the Philippines has “entrenched corruption and high levels of poverty,” increasing the number of potential victims because the country lacks the ability to respond promptly and efficiently.

This, we know without any study by experts telling us. Our experience with super typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) unraveled to us the stark and sad truth of that statement in the study. It took months before the government cleared the streets and shores of the thousands of dead bodies strewn all around. To this day, or more than a year after the strongest typhoon, so far, to hit land, dead bodies still get discovered, dug up in mud or debris, or found in ships that have been washed ashore, adding to the estimated fatalities of seven thousand people. Those who lost their homes still live in evacuation sites or temporary shelters under difficult conditions. While the rest of the nation and members of the international community rushed to give relief and aid, they later learned that the Social Welfare Department failed in distributing a substantial amount of relief goods. Pictures went circulating of relief goods rotting or buried in shallow ground.

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The study also reported that the Philippines is high risk, ranking 80th out of 198 countries in terms of lack of resilience. The study said that the Philippines has poor institutional capacity to manage, respond and recover from natural hazard events. Of the 100 cities all over the world that were found to be most at risk, 21 were in the Philippines. Verisk Maplecroft said that its analysis considered the combined risks posed by tropical storms, cyclones, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, severe storms, extra tropical cyclones, wildfires, storm surges, and landslides.

Five of the eight Philippine cities that landed on the top ten most disaster-prone cities of the world were:  Tuguegarao (2nd), Lucena (3rd), Manila (4th), San Fernando (5th) and Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija (6th).

If natural disasters were all that we had to face and prepare for, accepting our tough luck should not be that intensely difficult. What makes these threats of natural disasters more frightening is that there is no efficient system in place which we can expect to immediately move to promptly alleviate the consequences of disaster. If we review what happened to

Manila and all its surrounding cities and municipalities in the great flood dumped by tropical storm Ondoy, it was people helping one another, more than the government, that alleviated the effects of the disaster.

The Aquino government still has over a year to leave a lasting and significant legacy by putting up all the infrastructures needed to improve our disaster preparedness. A few days ago, as March—the Fire Prevention month—started, I found it comical that it was only then that the government was scrambling to buy new fire trucks. We cannot afford one comical response after another. It is time to get serious as people’s lives are on the line.

While browsing the internet I came across a study which lists down the countries most prepared, and therefore the safest to be in, in the event of a zombie attack. Of course, the Philippines is not anywhere near the most prepared. As incredible and far-fetched a zombie attack may sound, who knows, with our luck, it just might happen. It does not hurt to turn to prayers as there seems nothing else we can turn to.

 

Email: ritalindaj@gmail.com     Visit: www.jimenolaw.com.ph

                                    

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