EDITORIAL - Disaster resiliency

Now that we’ve learned the hard way about the destructive power of storm surges, there should be urgency in improving structural resiliency to typhoons and floods. This has always been a challenge in Metro Manila, where several areas are gradually sinking into the sea.

In northern Metro Manila, haphazard reclamation during the Marcos regime dammed up natural water catchments, resulting in flooding even during high tide. Now taxpayers must spend at least P3 billion to undo the damage, through a much delayed flood control project that has exceeded its original budget. Residents of the flood-prone CAMANAVA, or Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas and Valenzuela, are still waiting for the completion of this project, originally scheduled to be finished in June 2007.

The project, which includes a network of new drainage systems, flood control gates, river channel improvements, polder dikes and water pumping stations, is being undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Highways. But the DPWH is not the only agency that has seen delays in the implementation of flood control projects.

A report prepared by the Commission on Audit showed that smaller flood control projects undertaken by the Metro Manila Development Authority in 2012 also failed to make it in time for last year’s typhoon season. The COA traced the delay to slow bidding procedures and the need to coordinate projects with local executives and lawmakers. Of 49 projects started in 2012, 41 costing P224 million were completed late in the year and in January 2013, long after the rainy season had passed. “Inefficient implementation due to inadequate planning” marked the projects, state auditors reported.

People in the areas devastated by Super Typhoon Yolanda can only hope there will be minimal delays in the construction of structures that will make their communities more resilient to cataclysmic flooding. There is no surefire protection against nature’s fury, but there are ways of minimizing its impact. During the 2011 storm surge in Manila Bay, one establishment with floodgates built into its structure did not see flooding in its basement parking while those in neighboring buildings near the bay were inundated.

You can’t stop a typhoon or turn back a tsunami. This has developed fatalism among Filipinos rather than a resolve to improve disaster mitigation capabilities. It’s not too late to change this attitude. There will be more typhoons, more storm surges, more flooding, but their impact can be minimized. Destruction during natural calamities need not be inevitable.