Corruption and disasters

We have lived all these years resigned to the reality that the Philippines is a country of calamities and disasters, natural and manmade. A dozen typhoons visit with devastating consequences on lives and property. Really destructive earthquakes don’t happen too often, but we are not surprised when they do.

The past 30 days have, however, been horrible. Typhoons in Luzon, earthquakes in the Visayas and war in Mindanao tested the resilience of Filipinos. We can philosophically deal with Mother Nature’s wrath. But the manmade component of the aftermath is what we have to do something about.

Modern science has not yet found a way to predict earthquakes, so we have to leave it at that. But the destructive consequences of these tremors are totally manmade. We can understand what happened to centuries old churches, but the destruction to fairly recent infrastructure is attributable only to corruption.

 Pictures of roads and bridges severely damaged by the earthquake in Bohol appear to be Exhibit A of corruption. Broken concrete road pavements showed no reinforcing steel bars as should be the case. Construction standards were obviously lowered to increase “tongpats” paid to public officials.

Fairly new buildings that toppled also reveal corruption at the local government level. Most likely, stringent building standards have been ignored and local city or municipal engineering officials allowed that to happen for a consideration. Indeed, one wonders if there are qualified civil engineers in LGUs who can do a professional job of assuring building code compliance.

“Kasi puro lagayan in engineering office to get building permits,” one observer complained. “Inspections on stability of buildings now aren’t really happening!! People put their lives on the line to go inside buildings in Cebu and Bohol because they have no choice even if it hasn’t been inspected yet!!!”

Charie Villa who has been in the quake damaged areas the past week agrees. “That’s why I have been prodding Phivolcs and NDRMMC to keep informing people what to expect next. Aftershocks though weaker can still knock down already compromised buildings. Some of those buildings may have been shaken too much and malapit nang mahulog with just a few more tremors. Kaya even if these are just aftershocks, some are quite strong and people must be warned to be careful.”

The worst kind of corruption is still happening in the distribution of relief goods. Embarrassingly, this is happening in the full view of foreign tourists, one of whom was interviewed by Charie on ABS-CBN. Belgian tourist Dick Groots told Charie: “if you wanna help people here, do it directly because I went to a town there and the public officials keep the goods for themselves.”

Charie continues: “Grabe the politicking in Bohol! Mayors other LGU officials and political opponents wrangle over relief goods. But Boholanons are so submissive. They do not complain!!! Filipinos never complain! They take everything and anything!! Even crumbs.”

Charie, a veteran of disaster coverage in her over 25 years in broadcast journalism, says government still doesn’t know how to manage crisis. “Petrol is P120 per liter and there is nothing government is able to do about it. They think it’s enough just to give relief goods. Nobody handles info dissemination. Like last night, people in Tagbilaran panicked because of text messages spreading the rumor that a tsunami and a bigger quake will happen.”

Joel, a former newsman, sent me an e-mail which brought up a potential horror situation if an earthquake of that magnitude happened in Metro Manila. “Some weeks back you wrote something about disaster management, something about alternate water supply in the event of a major disaster.  (By the way, there’s none, is there?)

“Not even the supreme generosity of Wilkins, Absolute, Summit will be sufficient to stake Metro Manila’s parched throats. Using the Bohol earthquake as the microcosm, I shudder to think about the havoc and law-and-order situation where – God forbid – a killer quake would happen in Metro Manila.

“Hey, all it takes is for Guadalupe bridge to go down (and with it the MRT) and we’re just simply going to be totally screwed up, as if we’re not messed up right now as things stand. And because of complicity by a crooked city hall engineer, throw in another substandard skyscraper going down and I’m telling you that the blockbuster Apocalypse Now will be supremely inferior to how our metropolis will implode.”

Yes, Joel, that water thing is scary. We are 97 percent dependent on Angat Dam for our water supply in Metro Manila. And Angat is too close to the West Valley Fault, if not actually on it. Gerry Esquivel of MWSS once told me that one of his priority projects is to retrofit the dam to make it better able to withstand an earthquake. I don’t know if that has been done. Government was too focused on privatizing Angat Dam recently.

If that dam breaks in the event of a Bohol-type intensity quake, not only will it flood vast areas of Bulacan and Pampanga. Worse, it will dry up our water supply in Metro Manila. There is so far no alternative water supply source being developed. There has only been a lot of talk about such alternative supply sources, but as in anything useful for the people, this government moves extremely slowly, if at all.

Disaster preparedness shouldn’t just mean having several bodegas full of relief goods. It should also mean doing enough to mitigate the destructive impact of natural calamities. Good governance ensures disaster preparedness.

Let us start with proper land use planning. That Provident Village tragedy shouldn’t have happened when Ondoy struck if local government didn’t allow a residential subdivision set up in an area that naturally takes in the overflow of the Marikina River. I guess that’s the same problem with the subdivisions now on top of the West Valley Fault.

Then there is the legendary corruption of the City Engineer’s Office in various Metro Manila cities. Of course for a considerable sum of money, LGU officials close their eyes on construction that’s not compliant with our stringent Building Code.

They should now be inspecting older buildings and force the owners to retrofit compliance. But that’s not going to happen too. The JICA funded 2004 Metro Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study (MMEIRS) revealed that a magnitude 7.2 earthquake generated by the West Valley Fault, just like the one that hit Bohol, will affect at least 40 percent of the total number of residential buildings within Metro Manila. About 170,000 houses will collapse while 340,000 more will be partly damaged.

As reported last week in this newspaper, collapsing buildings can cause 34,000 deaths and 114,000 injuries. Additional 18,000 fatalities are expected because of fires breaking out and spreading after the major earthquake. Sounds like Armageddon to me and they are telling us the West Valley Fault is due to move.

There is nothing we can do about our natural tendency to be hit by natural calamities. We are in the typhoon path and we are part of the Pacific Ring of Fire where earthquakes are common. But there are two things we must do:

First of all, let us use whatever knowledge or science we have to increase our preparedness. We should do better land use planning and implementation of land use rules. We should construct our buildings and infrastructure with these natural calamities in mind. We should have the proper organization that is often tested to respond quickly in the event of such calamities.

Secondly, let us not make natural calamities worse by human greed. Those who used the Malampaya Fund meant for Ondoy victims should be punished. The mayors politicizing the distribution of relief good in Bohol should be thrown not just out of office, but in jails. LGUs must make sure they have competent and incorruptible building officials. We need to ensure strict implementation of our Building Code. And after a quake, a proper inspection of buildings must be quickly done.

If there is one instance where all of us must insist on good governance it is in disaster risk mitigation and crisis management. Our lives depend on it. Corruption kills.

Med test

A med tech called the wife of a patient to explain that they got the results of her husband’s biopsy mixed up with another man with the same name. Either way the results are not too good… one tested positive for Alzheimer’s and the other tested positive for HIV (aids).

“That’s dreadful! Can you do the test again?” the wife answered.

“Normally we can, but Medicare will pay for these expensive tests only one time.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do now?”

“Maybe you can drop your husband off somewhere in the middle of town. If he finds his way home, don’t sleep with him.”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco