Flooding: Is it due to squatters or politicians?

It was also December last year when Typhoon Sendong struck Cagayan de Oro City, Iligan City and Dumaguete City with devastating effect. Hundreds were killed because the local government units (LGUs) felt there was no need for disaster preparedness because it wasn’t a big storm. But the Japanese Metrological Survey did issue a warning that Typhoon Sendong was carrying a huge amount of water… but no one heeded that warning, thus disaster struck and killed hundreds of people.

At least for Super Typhoon Pablo (international code name Bopha), we already had the early warning that this was going to be a super typhoon with a huge swat. As of this writing, it should be exiting Mindanao and heading toward Palawan, or upwards toward the South China Sea. I woke up early and the winds in my house were already more than 30 kph as Cebu was still in the outer reaches of this storm. I could only ponder and pray for those people in Mindanao who were devastated by this storm.

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Did you know that there were two petitions filed with the Supreme Court (SC) questioning the constitutionality of the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement that was signed by the Philippine government with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The petitions were signed by lawyer Atty. Ely Pamatong (who was a nuisance candidate in the 2004 elections), Vicente Aquino and Mercedita Redoble.

Atty. Pamatong’s arguments were simple… that the Bangsamoro Framework Agreement was similar, if not a copy of the Bangsamoro Juridical entity that the Arroyo Administration tried to sign with the MILF, but was struck down by the Supreme Court. This is exactly what we’ve been saying all along… that it was a bad idea when then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo wanted to close this deal… but it was just great that this same exact deal was okayed by Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III.

But Atty. Ely Pamatong faces an uphill battle because we know too well that the Supreme Court (SC) is no longer an independent collegial body envisioned in the 1935 Constitution. Under the 1987 Constitution, this supposedly co-equal branch of the Philippine government has been mercilessly stricken down by the Executive and Legislative Branch when it had Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona publicly flogged and pilloried by the Aquino allies in the Philippine Senate… a legislative body controlled by the political elite that has ruled this country since the EDSA Revolution.

It is so sad that the majority of our Filipino people are totally ignorant about how democracy should be working for us not for the politicians. So many of us are so poorly educated to understand the workings of our current political system that rules out everyone except the “anointed” few. We discussed this a little bit during the 888 Forum on the issue of squatting along the Mahiga Creek, which Mayor Michael Rama bewailed, is the principal cause of the flooding in Cebu City and I fully agree with him.

The flooding has become so bad that during heavy rains, the area along the North Reclamation in SM looks like Venice. This is because the raging flood waters can no longer exit out of the Subangdaku River, which we also know is heavily silted. But then who allowed these illegal dwellers to erect shanties along the riverbanks? Blame of course falls squarely in the hands of the Office of the Building Official (OBO) that turned a blind eye at such violation of our building code. But the root causes really are the politicians who more often than not “protect” these people from eviction.

Evicting these informal settlers would mean the loss of votes that catapult our politicos into power for the next three years. This is why people like former Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Jr. or Fr. Joaquin Bernas, two people I know who were members of the Constitutional body that created the 1987 Constitution, must explain to the Filipino people why they have allowed elections to happen once every three years.

This proviso in the 1987 Constitution is a huge hindrance to our economic growth and development because we know that for our politicians to survive and be in power in the next three years, they have to “cultivate” the votes from the masses… many of whom are living along the riverbanks.

So once every three years, we hold elections for our leaders and chances are, we elect those who are already in power because they have a huge advantage over those who do not yet hold any public office. This is why I have been batting for political reforms, which can be done through a constitutional convention (con-con) and I will begin these reforms from the bottom up… from the barangay up to the legislature. But when…I don’t know?

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