The homeland of the bizarre

There is nothing quite like our nation of 119 million; the juxtaposition is everywhere. They are endless as they are varied and they are magnified a hundred times over when a disaster such as Wednesday’s catastrophic flood hits us like a thief in the night.

Where, for instance, can you find a President trumpeting about flood control projects only to see the capital region submerged in water 48 hours later – deep, dirty and depressing? Or where else can you find self-proclaimed and out-of-touch influencers going out on a field trip to “experience” the flooding from the comfort of their chauffeur-driven vehicles? Or where else can you find politicians turning tragedy into PR stunts? Or where else can you find authorities going after the trustees of a place called Masungi, touted as the last ark of biodiversity and which actually helps prevent flooding in Metro Manila? Or where else can you find permits and clearances sold for a song to allow quarrying in the mountains of Rizal and beyond, which worsens flooding in the cities below?

Perhaps only in the Philippines, here in our homeland of the bizarre. Isn’t it strange that more than a decade after Ondoy struck in 2009, we’re back to where we started or perhaps even worse? Isn’t it strange that for a nation battered by some 20 typhoons every year, it seems we haven’t really learned our lessons.

Where indeed do our taxes go?

For nearly every move we make as citizens – from buying food and other goods, to using our mobile phones, to ordering online, to using our roads – we pay a tax and yet we hardly feel our taxes working for our benefit.

Whatever happened to all those congressional investigations on flood-related disasters? Whatever happened to the tens of thousands of pages of feasibility studies about flood control projects? Whatever happened to the pending National Land Use Policy proposed in the first year of the Marcos administration? Whatever happened to all those multilateral loans for climate-resiliency?

A change in mindset – preventive not reactive – is what we need, along with a strong leadership who will steer our ship in the right direction so that when the next great flood comes, we shall find ourselves safer than we were before.

Disasters slow economic growth so we should not treat these as just occasional disruptions.

As the Asian Development Bank pointed out, throughout history, crises are known to spur change, as the Great London Smog in 1952 led the United Kingdom to create the first Clean Air Act in 1956. A fire on Ohio’s once polluted Cuyahoga River is credited for getting the environmental movement off the ground in the United States in the late 1960s. And the tragic mercury poisoning around the same time in Minamata, Japan provoked environmental legislation.

I hope that Carina, too, will leave us lessons so we can do better in the future.

We must work on long-term solutions that will prevent chronic flooding in Metro Manila.

Implementing nature-based solutions is one of the ways we can improve our climate resilience. These include scientifically proven solutions such as planting and protecting mangroves and building bioswales or channels to convey stormwater runoff and restoring wetlands.

We must do long-term urban planning. We cannot just keep on building structures left and right. How about reclamation projects? Surely, they must have contributed to the flooding that we experienced.

We must have a whole-of-nation approach in dealing with such disasters. Constant improvements in drainage systems and waste management are necessary as well as banning the construction of structures in hazardous areas.

A lament for the living

Wednesday’s flooding is tragic but the real tragedy really is how easy Filipinos forgive and forget.

Come election season, we Filipinos forget every tragedy that came our way, still voting into power every politico who managed to show up, whether or not that meant something or nothing at all.

The American vaudeville performer and humorous social commentator Will Rogers once quipped, “The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.” He might as well be talking about Filipino voters.

It is time for Filipinos to realize we deserve so much more than what we are getting.

We need so much more than lawmakers and local chieftains getting all drenched with us when heavy rains submerge us in waist-deep waters. We need them to craft and implement long-term solutions, to address corruption in the issuance of building, quarrying and mining permits – activities which all contribute to chronic flooding.

Washed away

As I write this, some residents whose homes were flooded are still trying to clean and salvage whatever’s left to save out of the mud and filth – appliances, clothes, food and, more importantly, the priceless stuff they hold dear – diplomas, love letters, photographs.

I can only imagine the emotional pain because what’s even more difficult to save are the intangible pieces of one’s life – the dreams of love and hope washed away with the waters of Carina.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.