Barely two months ago, Gloria Arroyo perched on a pedestal piled atop what used to be an exposed garbage dump. Once, in a prior dictatorship, that mound was magically transformed, at least outwardly, by urban planners into the Batasan Pambansa. Worthy of Albert Speer’s works, it was a monumental temple to the pork-belly-fed and fattened pachyderms that wield the power of the purse.
Thunderous applause greeted her. Approval and awe wafted through a shellacked chamber punctuating with towering exclamation points the achievements of a resplendent economy, declaring within its halls and to the gutters outside how fortunate Filipinos were to have Arroyo risen to the top.
A few kilometers away, within the aerial range of flies, the dengue-carrying Aedes aegypti and other pestilence; the crawling distance of rats, two and four-legged parasites and other bubonic vermin; and the wafting proximity of airborne molecules that spread the stench and stink of toxic refuse drifting both ways, Payatas perpetuates like a plague.
What diseases afflict the denizens of dumpsites are man-made, spawned from toxic negligence in a Petri dish as large as a town and increasingly populated by the destitute as plentiful as a city’s.
A fire had broken out nearby and the conflagration raged as a biblical deluge of garbage flowed from denuded hills and barren, over-quarried mountain slopes. Cyclone Ondoy inundated lower lying areas and basins carved out of the earth.
When Mother Nature scolds and the Almighty admonishes, one would think those clambered on potties and perched on pedestals might listen even as they serve netherworldly deity, mammon and money. Environmental degradation should wake us from our strumming of short belly hairs and our momentary comforts and complacencies between episodes of deadly floods, fires and pestilence. But it doesn’t.
In 2006, when the deadly Typhoon Millenyo hit, the plump, fattened and pork-bellied bantered about equipping weather forecasting agencies with a Doppler radar system that, more than simply monitors, determines accumulation and rainfall content carried by a system threatening the islands.
While wind and gustiness can kill, so can rainfall. But more so, can deadly and deliberate neglect.
The Doppler radar’s cost was then less than US$ 300,000. Given the Palace’s pork-belly patronage at Php 70 million apiece for each congressman, it was clearly containable within a congressional district pork-barrel. But before legislators could even learn to spell “Doppler”, other priorities entered their 1,000-word-powered vocabulary. Never mind that the emergent alphabet soup made less sense and was as murky as floodwaters. “Doppler” was Greek. Solons speak the language of ZTE-NBN or LAKAS, KAMPI-CMD.
Last July Arroyo boasted of our safety “from environmental degradation and man-made disasters”. Check out the transcript. She proudly declared that “as a country in the path of typhoons and in the Pacific Rim of Fire, we must be as prepared as the latest technology permits to anticipate natural calamities when that is possible, to extend immediate and effective relief when it is not”.
Three years ago, pork-barrels to purchase “latest technology” would have “anticipat(ed) natural calamities” as had taken lives in the last week. Lives lost by uncoordinated rescues and fumblingly late responses as desperate calls were heard as early as dawn when Ondoy hit. Yet Arroyo’s “immediate and effective relief” either came too late or, as in many cases, never at all.
Arroyo then declared “the mapping of flood- and landslide-prone areas is almost complete. Early warning, forecasting and monitoring systems have been improved, with weather tracking facilities in Subic, Tagaytay, Mactan, Mindanao, Pampanga.”
Tracking is important to disaster preparedness. But as any student who has had to wade through chest-deep water despite the absence of a typhoon signal can tell you, current storm warnings rely on wind speed. They do not measure precipitate accumulation as might have been forecasted had we the right equipment.
Arroyo added, “We have worked on flood control infrastructure like those for Pinatubo, Agno, Laoag, and Abucay, which will pump the run off waters from Quezon City and Tondo flooding Sampaloc. This will help relieve hundreds of hectares in this old city of its age-old woe. Patuloy naman iyong sa Camanava, dagdag sa Pinatubo, Iloilo, Pasig-Marikina, Bicol River Basin, at mga river basin ng Mindanao. The victims of typhoon Frank in Panay should receive their long-overdue assistance package.”
When it floods, garbage indeed rises to the top. In the near future, the floods will recede and the fires will no longer have anything to burn. But what pestilence plagues us may perpetuate a while longer.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Estimates of the water-content of typhoons about to hit Pinas had always been available. Inquirer or ManilaTimes could have printed estimates of millimeters-of-rainfall even if PAGASA did not mention the numbers. [I do not know about royalty-payment issues.]
For example, there is a forecast for Thursday, for MNL (Ninoy Aquino Airport), as follows:
http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=mnl&wuSelect=WEATHER
Here’s one from Accuweather.com
http://www.accuweather.com/world-forecast-current-conditions.asp?partner=accuweather&traveler=0&locCode=ASI|PH|RP073|MANILA&metric=0
Humidity 88 % Cloud Cover 85 %
Visibility 5 Miles Max Temp. 87 °F
Dewpoint 79 °F Min Temp. 77 °F
Ceiling 1000 ft Departure 3 °F
Apparent Temp. 92 °F High Past 6 Hrs. 85 °F
Wind Chill 82 °F Low Past 6 Hrs. 80 °F
Wind Speed 12 mph Precip Past 3 Hrs. 0.09 in
Wind Direction WSW Precip Past 6 Hrs. 0.16 in
Wind Gusts 12 mph Precip Past 24 Hrs. 0.76 in
Pressure 29.74 in Pressure Tendency Rising
Detailed Current Conditions
Monday, October 05, 2009 [ English | Metric ]
Current Summary
82°F
MOSTLY CLOUDY
RealFeel® 92 °F
WSW at 12 mph
UV Index Key
Currently: 0 (Low)
***
ayan kasi panay ang twitter, facebook at wowowee :)
Metro Manila’s flood mitigation infrastructure as conceived by the Marcos administration was not completed. The channel that was supposed to pump water from Laguna de Bay to Manila Bay near the international airport was cancelled by the Aquino administration. That channel was supposed to reduce the water level in Laguna de Bay without opening the Napindan flood gates. Now residents of Taguig and other towns along Laguna de Bay have to wait until Christmas for relief from the flood.
Dear Supremo.
You are so right about that one. The channel itself was not built, so there are no pumps and no other egress than the Napindan floodgates, the latter which is supposed to address an altogether different overflow.
Dean
Can’t expect Arroyo to clean up overnight, the dump left all the way back from Quezon’s time to the present.
WE can have the all the latest gadgets, but all it will do is monitor – at the end of the day – your home will still be under the water.
On the long-term you can’t keep on throwing on monitoring when you live in highly flood prone areas. It will be more cost effective to redirect development to areas of higher elevation and not prone to flooding.
Man can insist, but when nature persists – the oak tree snaps in two, and the pliant bamboo gets to lives another day.
You dont have to go far, to see our own stupidity. Squatter shanties
populate along the river banks and esteros. Mountains surrounding
the Metro Maila area are denuded. No workable Flood Control of the
cities. The Laguna de Bay area was turned into enterprising fish pens and subdivisions. There are no Levees or no Dikes to protect low level areas during floods. Subdivision Developers build on flood prone areas without good drainage.
The Common Good was placed at the back; for Political patronage. And expediency to get votes. You dont want to remove squatters who vote for you. Do you?
Funds were given to Congress people who help those in Power get
elected. Doppler Radars and Flood Control Funds were diverted to
nonsense Public Works funds in far away Provinces.
God has a means to show our stupidity. He surely put it infront of
our eyes. TALAGANG KALAMPAGING KA! PARANG MAGISING KA!
Do you include Bicol? Bohol? Agusan? What do you mean with the comment about nonsense Public Works funds in far away Provinces…
Whatever you understand. What is the priority?
To build Public Works projects in the Provinces. Where
there is less of population. Or to build Flood Control
Projects, like DAMS and LEVEES on Metro Manila where
population is more. And there is yearly floodings during
typhoons. PRIORITY is the good term. Some projects can
wait! Politics also was a factor. They politicize everything including Public Works projects.
It should be DIKES and LEVEES. Not DAMS and LEVEES.
Amsterdam, Holland is a city below sea level. They have
good Urban Planning. Good Flood Control System. Good
DIKES and LEVEES.
Ask Jose Maria Sison of the NDF to conduct a study.He lives there. He will have some projects to attend to. To get him out from thinking in overthrowing the Philippine government. I know, my good old Professor will heed the call. This is one way to help the Masa.
Hyden: I guess you and JoeAm feel the same about the insanity of nonsense smooth highways in Bicol or Ilocos.
There is a saying among those in the provinces about those in Manila. In Manila they say, there are brdges (Flyovers)but no rivers. In the provinces, there are rivers, but no bridges.
I think Hyden is simply making a point about priorities, whether these are in the cities or in the provinces. We must remember that while most of the footage was about the flooding in Manila, the concentration of death was in the provinces. This is true not just last week but also when typhoons hit Ormoc and Quezon repeatedly during the yuletide season.
Dean
To Hyden:
“Whatever you understand. What is the priority?
To build Public Work projects in the Provinces.”
Interpretation can be as follows:
1. your statement CAN be a negative stereotype of our provinces. Who formulated the policy on porkbarrel to fund projects lacking Transparency of Disbursements, Breakdown of expenditures and projected return on investment? Is it not the Senate who lives in Manila? The obligation and higher degree of duty is crystal clear.
2. Is it not the Senate who create policy and oversee SEC on who is who in business? What about the central office of ombudsman? ” illegal LOgging”? Remember Ormoc and St Bernard? Who cut our trees? Who were responsible to regulate? Don’t tell me it’s the Mang Juan of Leyte ?
3. Policymakers who live in Manila may have very limited knowledge and interaction with their respective region that they represent. The intended project may not truly be the priority of the local people.
The only thing they can do, they may use nature or other calamities to leverage their request to accelerate pork barrel funding…..
So be careful… some people can interpret it as ” prejudice”
Side-topic: click below for who are now using C6 (bicutan to taytay)
http://www.motorcyclephilippines.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120615
But though the people parted . There will still be a chance that
they will see. There will be an answer: Let it be!
Sir Paul McCartney
The Beatles
We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine…
Dean
And houses made of Norwegian wood . . .
When I was a kid, my playmates sing this song. “Yellow submarine” means to us human and animal excrement floating in flood waters.
Or Joni Mitchell’s classic Big Yellow Taxi…. Paved paradise to put up a parking lot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml6l1wCWXiE&feature=related
Here is a business model that may be replicable in metro-Manila.
http://www.pacificpumpandpower.com/docs/newsletters/2009-02-Newsletter.pdf
Here is another one:
http://boston.backpage.com/CleaningServices/mister_flood_storm_water_damage_repair_hurricane_flood_damage_clean_up_tornado_wind_damage_cleanup/classifieds/ViewAd?oid=1900159
Here is another one. Toilets, fences. Showers, too.
http://www.unitedsiteservices.com/
And Pinoys not afraid to swim can do a non-profit club with focus on swift-water rescue (Marikina, Pasig, Laguna waters, Manila Bay).
“When Mother Nature scolds and the Almighty admonishes, one would think those clambered on potties and perched on pedestals might listen even as they serve netherworldly deity, mammon and money. Environmental degradation should wake us from our strumming of short belly hairs and our momentary comforts and complacencies between episodes of deadly floods, fires and pestilence. But it doesn’t.”
How do I nominate you for a Pulitzer? Or get that lazy publisher of yours on it . . .
Joe
Hmm…admirable writing indeed it is. Does Palanca have a category for journalism? Or what’s our equivalent for Pulitzer? It’s a good point you’ve raised, joe.
Tangentially…
http://atmidfield.com/2009/10/05/the-failure-of-the-manggahan-floodway/
All told, there is sufficient reason to believe that in a BLAME GAME, not only is PGMA to blame but even as early as during the Aquino administration which cancelled the supposed-to-be channel near NAIA.
On another note, storms like Ondoy are ordinarily just natural events. They become disasters only so because we now get to realize the extent and magnitude of the problem of the mushrooming if not the deluge of squatter colonies or informal settlers.
Apparently, each city or municipality has opened its gates to the homeless and the have-nots to find their own “inhuman habitat” as they may please.
Naturally, they situate themselves along rivers, creeks, esteros, under bridges, flyovers, hillsides, et cetera et cetera – precisely because they don’t have to build their own ‘comfort rooms’.
Adding insult to injury, some developers even occupy what should be easements. And a host of other contributory factors that aggravate the lives not just of the homeless or the have-nots but more so the burgeoning middle class.
There should now be ‘defensive measures’ consisting of restrictions that are to be imposed on ‘human habitat. Let us please also defend our “dams, dikes, breakwaters, avalanche barriers and means to keep floodwaters from damaging low-lying sewage plants “, et ceter et cetera.
Im sick and tired of this topic.
Lets talk politics for a change.
Whos leading now? Noynoy or Chiz?
How about Erap?
GMA?
punona,
The race doesn’t really start until November, and given the pressure being brought to bear on those expending (public?) money on television shows, it may remain somewhat quiet and therefore ill-defined as to who is leading until official campaigning can legally begin. GMA is history, sealed to her fate by an increasingly aware public and a storm. Erap will bow out (my guess), in favor of Noynoy. Teodoro will have a hard time gaining traction, again due to the storm and dislike for GMA. Villar has money and a machine, against Aquino who has a halo. Everyone else will have a hard time striking a meaningful pose.
Who do you favor? I have dropped Teodoro like a hot potato (Primer, please heed), and I think Noynoy has the right character. He needs help from us to crystallize his thinking and goals.
Campaigning is a two-way dialogue, and Filipinos should not take this opportunity to be politely and subserviently quiet.
Joe
Joe,
You’re right! The race has not started yet, but look at some of the runners…they’re running already.
That’s cheating, where are the referees/judges?
The Comelec? Oh, heck, asleep.
Don’t worry, Joe. We will judge, before the finish line.
Perhaps the Comelec’s thinking it’s a rehearsal. Dumb Comelec.
Is it campaigning when NGO’s are wearing bright-yellow shirts as they distribute Ondoy relief packages?
Some groups use plastic bags with “Villar” printed on them
when they hand out relief products. Sure sounds like
campaigning, doesn’t it? But is it?
I know there are laws about when a campaign can start,
but I don’t think Pinas Supreme Court has even ruled on
what activities are campaigning and what activities are not. I seriously doubt the Supreme Court will ban “wearing yellow” or “using plastic bags with logos or
names” during disaster relief package distribution.
UP n,
The notion that one can define when and how campaigning can begin is rather ridiculous, neh? It is one of those laws that reflects how uptight and insecure the elected bunch is, and reflects why insanities such as the Right of Reply Bill are attended to whilst doppelers are not. “Absurd” is the gap between rational thought and irrational action, and the general legislative theater abounds in the latter.
One of the main actors, Senator Santiago, is well worth the ticket price, however, for one never knows what will come blasting out of her mouth, but one can always assume it will be entertaining, and one can always assume she will blast, as she most assuredly missed the legislative seminar on tact and subtlety. She has been ripping those who are (possibly) spending the public’s money on television infomercials that “seem” to be in the public interest but are actually rather wolfy campaigns dressed in sheep skin. I think she is holding hearings on the subject, or intends to. My Smart internet connection is too slow to research this without spending an extra 10 pesos, so I shall merely offer this up as speculative blather.
Speculative blather is not, by definition, irrational; it is simply unproven.
Personally, I think it is hard to define where oil begins and water ends . . . and is not worth the effort.
The evidence would tend to show, however, that doppelers are both definable, tangibly, and well worth the effort.
Joe
Addicted to Politics. Look what Has Politics done to us all!
I think we should dismantle all the Fishpens in Laguna de Bay. It gives monopoly to influential people and the rich to put up a claim out of the Laguna de Bay. This has caused yearly floods. And made only few people rich. Why not give the Laguna de Bay to the people where it belongs? Perhaps people can form cooperatives to sow fish fingerlings in the lake. Then, anybody can fish in it. Now, the Fishpen Owners monopolizes the lake. As if they own it, like a Hacienda. This will help all. Not just those influential and rich people who can afford capital.
Technology to predict the path, wind intensity and amount of precipitation of typhoons are available but the government was still caught unprepared. Do you trust the government to be prepared for the next EARTHQUAKE in MM?
No Technology is invented yet to predict EARTHQUAKE, VOLCANIC
ERUPTIONS, or MOVEMENTS OF FAULTLINES. We sit on the PACIFIC
RIM OF FIRE. Where we are vulnerable to: Earthquakes. Vocanic
eruptions. Movements of Tectonic Plates called Faultlines that
can trigger TSUNAMIS like the one in American Samoa recently.
We have to be ready for all coming Disasters. It is the Planet
Earth changing. with its Equilibrium disturbed by our own
irresponsibility. Besides, These Cycles occur every thousand
of years. It is called realignments of the Solar System. I cannot discribe it in layman’s terms.
I should have said :every 26,000 Earth Years. If you can
research on the Astronomical Technology of the Ancient Mayas of
Guatemala, South America. You can understand it. They were expert Astronomers. They built great Temples, which are still there. But, in truth are Astronomical Observatories. Their Civilization just vanished from the face of the Earth. We dont know the reasons up to now.
If disasters come in cycles, a hotel fire is coming up fairly soon.
(metro-Manila (except for Ruby Towers) seem to be relatively safe
from earthquake-caused deaths and injuries).
The number of dead from metro-Manila fires, disasters, etc could have been reduced by better building codes and oversight of the conduct of business operations, e.g.
– shipping disasters : Princess Stars (2008) and Dona Paz (1987)
– dump site land management : Payatas disaster (July 2000);
– hotel- or night-club fires : 1996 Ozone disco-Quezon City;
2001 Manor Hotel Quezon City
body-count from fire and because fire-exits were blocked;
– terrorism : SuperFerry bombing, LRT train bombing
– typhoons : Antipolo landslide, Ondoy/Ketsana
http://www.txtmania.com/trivia/disasters.php
Dear Up n Grad,
You can add both national and local elections to your list of disasters. That’s one of the things that we prepare for and yet still continue to be victimized from.
Regards,
Dean