We have been fortunate in the Philippines

First there was the total destruction of the old city of New Orleans. I had, of course, heard of cities totally destroyed by atomic bomb. But never had I heard of a major city destroyed in one day by a hurricane. Because of television, watching world news makes you feel that tragedies are happening where you are. This was followed by another storm in Texas. And now, New York City itself is on high alert because terrorists are said to be planning an attack on the subways using baby carriages and brief cases to hide the bombs. And now, we have the earthquake in Pakistan that has already accounted for the death of 18,300 people and according to reports may reach as high as 30,000. To make matters worse, it happened at the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

There was also the bombing of restaurants in Bali, Indonesia.

Our sympathies, of course, go to all the victims of these calamities and we cannot help but feel thankful to the Lord that the Philippines has so far been spared of such calamities both natural and man-made. Our typhoon season is from June to December. The peak season is July, August and September. But typhoons Onding, Violeta and Winnie happened in November, and typhoon Yoyong in December last year. Typhoon Yoyong caused landslides in Quezon and Aurora. When we read about the mudslides brought about by a hurricane in Guatemala, again, we feel lucky of being spared of such a calamity.

What we have to do is to take preventive measures that would minimize damage in the event that we get hit by a typhoon or an earthquake. We must take steps to minimize resulting floods and landslides. As for earthquakes, we could not help but wonder how our modern high-rise buildings will fare. We have earthquake zones and high-rise buildings in these zones should be constructed in what is called floating foundations. We have the municipalities who have been enforcing these safety rules. We don’t know what measures the different municipalities that compose Metro Manila have adopted and implemented to minimize floodings that come with the heavy rains and typhoons.

Let us learn from the experiences of New Orleans, Guatemala and Pakistan. We must always have pre-emptive measures to minimize problems that may come natural or man-made.