Post-typhoon reflections and the San Francisco purok system

Many in the Kanto area of Japan (including Tokyo) woke up Friday morning expecting strong winds and heavy rains brought by typhoon #8 or Neoguri. Instead, only the dark clouds and the extreme heat lingered as reminders of the typhoon that, gratefully, weakened and which had been observed to be exiting Japan via Hokkaido.

Neoguri, however, did not spare many areas like Okinawa, portions of Kyushu in the south, Yamagata, Nagano, and Wakayama, among others. The strong winds slammed through railroad tracks, bridges, and other structures while heavy rains caused floods and landslides. As of July 11th morning, 3 were reported dead and about 60+ injured. How to avert casualties through disasters remains a continuing goal.

One community in Wakayama was badly damaged during a strong typhoon two years back. Learning from that experience, the community leader (equivalent to our barangay captain) resolved to be more prepared for future disasters. When typhoon Neoguri made a landfall in Japan, this leader personally made the rounds of  households, especially those where the elderly lived. He reminded the elderly to listen to typhoon alerts and especially reminded them to heed the evacuation alert once it was made. He reminded them to call him or other volunteers if they needed help for evacuation. An elderly couple called their emergency number and requested for help. This community leader took his private vehicle and fetched the elderly couple, brought them to their community evacuation center, where other volunteers awaited them. After registration, they were provided with bottled tea and brought to the room reserved for evacuees. When interviewed, one elderly person said that at 88, he was very thankful to have been assisted.

Elsewhere, another elderly couple found themselves buried in mud after a landslide near their home. They were rescued an hour after. Tearfully, the rescued elderly said he thought he and his wife would die but he said they never gave up hope that rescuers would come to save them.

It will take some time to start anew for those whose lives were almost taken by the last typhoon or whose homes were damaged or flooded or where landslides occurred. However, in a country where disaster management is a serious priority, those affected by the typhoon in Japan know that an effective system of assistance and recovery will help them go beyond this challenge soon.

Previous experiences have made many communities disaster resilient in Japan. On the other hand, our country has also experienced so many disasters throughout our history, with typhoon Haiyan as the most recent. How disaster-resilient and how disaster-prepared are we all?

The experience of San Francisco in Camotes come to mind. Former mayor Al Arquillano, now coordinator of the Regional Center of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development (RCE-Cebu) successfully encouraged his constituents to take care of themselves by purok. This simple yet empowering purok management system allowed the residents to actively participate in livelihood activities, environmental protection, and disaster preparation and management, among others. Even the elderly have their active role to play within puroks.

The San Fran-Camotes model is based on the simple concept of every purok taking care of their own people and community. Every purok has updated data base about the residents in their area, their livelihood situation, their peace and order and environmental situation (including regular monitoring of waste and other resources). Everyone takes care of each other, walang iwanan in terms of daily sustenance and emergency situations.

Can that purok model be adopted outside of Camotes? Can you imagine all throughout Cebu and the rest of our country, residents can form very active and empowered puroks with reliable and updated data base about their residents and their community, with a very effective system of responsible residents collaborating among themselves to help each other with their daily sustenance, with their livelihood, with the cleanliness and sanitation, peace and order situation, and responding together to be resilient during ordinary days and even during disasters?

Simple is beautiful, a small simple step can go a long way. Camotes had zero casualty during the deadly typhoon Haiyan. Is their purok participatory governance system one that your own purok can adopt soon?

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