On the 26th day of September 2009, Tropical Storm Ondoy, known as Ketsana to you international folks visited my hometown of Metro Manila, capital of the Philippines. Ondoy wept sixteen point seven inches of rainfall in twelve hours and turned my hometown into an ocean. If you want to frame it in proper context, scientists have told us that the typical rainfall in Metro Manila for the month of September was fifteen inches of rain. Put it in another way, rainfall in Florida and Louisiana when Katrina visited the United States was fifteen inches.

On twitter, people were calling it worst than Katrina.

I would like to be writing here that those people were wrong. I would love nothing more than to say that the government had stepped in, with full confidence to rescue people trapped on top of their homes, especially in Cainta. I wished that I could tell you government was prepared and that we are coordinated in delivering rescue and relief.

We are saddened by the loss of life. @ageofbrillig tweeted a report over AM radio station DZMM: “Bodies at provident Village found inside their vehicles, many of the deceased were female.”

The destruction wrought on property, the trauma this experience brought people is another matter entirely.

People almost everywhere were huddled up at the highest level of their house. They were people I knew. They were friends. Some of them had little or no food. Another had his car soaked in water. He hasn’t started it, waiting for a mechanic. His clinic though was a disaster area, with books drenched. His clinic was in the first level of their house. My cousin’s in-laws were trapped in the second floor of their house. All their food and rice, underwater. They only had some bananas to get them through the night. In other parts of the city, the water had risen up to the third level. They’re not the only ones. As I type this, friends who live in Pasig continue to be trapped with rescue still far as waters are still too high and boats, too few.

You can see this stream of Ondoy for the snaps.

This is how bad Ondoy was: it pounded Metro Manila as Manny Pacquiao would his victims in the ring.

Yesterday, today and I hope tomorrow continue to be a moment for the aspirants in next year’s election to shine. Though partisanship is set aside in this time of great crisis. Noynoy Aquino and his choice for Vice President, Mar Roxas were hard at work to deliver relief work. Senator Manny Villar had a fleet of dump trucks ready to help the stranded. Senator Dick Gordon of the Red Cross was good to go to rescue people. People everywhere were tweeting and helping out. They still do now. Sending information on who needed help or where to send for help, in donations.

There is a Filipino word for it: Bayanihan.

The government led by aspirant Secretary of Defense Teodoro and the President were huddled in a military camp. They were meeting to talk about what to do. It wasn’t until nightfall that they were able to decide to send out 13 rubber boats. The worst hit area was assigned only one boat. Cainta remains unaccounted for. Did I mention that many more are trapped in Pasig as I write this?

The MMDA and the government are doing their best, as best as they could manage. That’s not to say, it was or is enough. It is to say though we are appreciative of the service the people on the ground are doing. The grunts, we owe beer to. The ones on top though, they fall short.

In the next few days, blame will be laid down, mostly, on Bayani Fernando’s head, one could imagine. He is Metro Manila Development Authority head. His duty is Urban Planning. His thankless job is to keep the streets from flooding and to keep garbage collected as well as to maintain traffic.

I probably should have written “was”, instead of “is”. Can he keep his job after this?

To put blame on the guy, isn’t without merit but the blame isn’t his entirely. The Metro Manila Mayors— the local government units should have been better prepared for disaster. Metro Manila should have been better prepared. It isn’t like this is the first time the Metropolis was visited by a tropical storm, much less a typhoon. It isn’t the first time that flood waters have risen in the city. It will not be the last either.

We’re not just talking about flood waters here or Typhoons. It could be a tidal wave next time. It could be an Earthquake.

We must move past the blame, and step into the future.

In the next few days, the People of Manila will be picking up the pieces of their shattered lives. We will bury our dead. We will fix our cars and our homes and our roads. We are thankful for the gift of still having clothes on our back, while others have none and some have lost even more than mere numbers could quantify. Then our lives will gradually return to normal.

The thing that troubles me the most is that this problem we have is wider in depth and scope than merely preventing disaster. It is even greater than merely being ready to face that unknown future where ultimately we will again be tested. It encompasses the other challenges of city life. The terrible traffic, the state of our mass transit, the way we manage our waste and how our metropolis is designed.

Roch (pronounced, Rosh), a friend of mine recently returned from Taiwan. She blogged about how efficient the mass transit system there and had this wish:

For Metro Manila, I know it’s close to impossible.  This is my challenge for the next president, hope he/she could plan for this so we can have something similar in the future.  This can definitely help the terrible traffic problem that we have in the country.

Those of us who’ve been around the world can understand where Roch is coming from. Can we look each other in the eye and say that this is worth pursuing?

It started on the 26th Day of September, 2009. It continues now. Filipinos showed a depth of our generosity and unparalleled heroism as each held another’s arms, helping out as best we could, no matter how little it was.

To call for unity is a tired cliche, I know. I tell you this. To answer the great perils of tomorrow, to meet our current challenges, we must unite Metro Manila in the same way the people of Manila have shown courage and unity in the face of adversity.

The people of Metro Manila can no longer afford to meet the challenges of tomorrow, separately. It doesn’t matter if it is flooding, traffic, garbage or population explosion or any other dozen challenges. What happens in Quezon City, affects those in Makati, in Mandaluyong and vice-versa.

This is the Institutional Reform that must be undertaken.

How confident am I that Metro Manila can be a better city, ready to meet disaster and adversity head on and still smile about it?

According to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Metro Manila had P2.24 trillion gross regional domestic product in 2006 and the news item noted that that is thirty seven percent (37%) of the Philippines’ gross domestic product for that year, which was over P6 Trillion

Two trillion peso contribution into the national economy and we’re not taking care of our capital?

Metro Manila is made up of a loose confederation of sixteen cities and the municipality of Pateros. There is no central governing authority, meaning each city tries to solve both distinctive problems and similar problems separately while sharing a common infrastructure. They have interconnecting roads, sewerage, garbage disposal problems. Whether crime, garbage, quality of roads, traffic affect every city but there is no common thrust to systematically solve them. So the problem of traffic on one end of Makati can find itself stretching all the way to Quezon City, passing through Mandaluyong, as an example. Excessive traffic along Espana caused by flooding (however fast it recedes) affects traffic in Quezon City. All the cities share the same problem of waste disposal, and pollution and a population that constantly travels across city lines.

There is a Metro-wide service agency called the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) that does planning, monitoring, and other functions. The MMDA council is composed of mayors that approve of the plan but the agency is headed by an appointed official by the Philippine President.

More often than not, Metro Manila Mayors are up in arms against the head of the MMDA. From the mayors’ point of view, this is understandable. They are elected officials. They are subject to the will of their constituents. The MMDA Head is not and subject only to the whims of the sitting President of the Republic.

The position of the MMDA Head is likewise understandable. He has a job to do. His job is urban planning, monitoring but he needs to do more: he needs to solve traffic among other things. Given the limited funds he has and given the limited powers of his office. That and we the people can’t fire his behind, or reward him with a new term if he does a great job.

The existing structure promotes conflict between various stakeholders and makes the delivery of infrastructure and city-services much more difficult.

A number of models already exist that provide an answer to the festering problem of Metro Manila. Montreal and New York City are perfect example of what Metro Manila can be.

Recently, New York magazine asked why New Yorkers are living longer than most Americans. The magazine described the city of New York as a massive stair master. The massive subway and stairway system so purposely designed is making New Yorkers walk more and thus they become healthier.

By acting in concert, by having a unified Government for Metro Manila, maybe we can do more than prepare for the next disaster, or fix our garbage collection, and our unemployed and street vendors and a dozen other challenges. It also needs to leverage social media to face future disasters. We also need to leverage google maps and gps. All this requires of us a concentrated effort. It needs a united front. Even thought it sounds so trivial in the face of Ondoy’s devastation, maybe we can look our women friends in the eye, with full confidence and say: “Traffic and mass transportation? Yeah, there’s hope for us.”

Before the tired and the weary argue that all this is an exaggeration and before they snipe that the capital goes underwater and people act as if this is the end of the country, can you see that this can be, a new beginning?

Renewal. Redemption. Rebirth.

Metro Manila is our capital, our metropolis. It is our front door to the world. The capital of any nation is a symbol of who it is, and what it hopes to aspire to. As a people, we’ve not much to be proud of. We’ve no monuments, and no Eiffle Tower, no Taj Mahal, no Washington Mall nor Great Pyramid. Metro Manila can be a symbol of what we are proud of, what we aspire our entire country to be. It can be the symbol of our courage to set aside our fears; a symbol of our unity. Maybe we can solve our questions of traffic, and transportation, and our garbage and city design and care for our people’s health. And maybe, just maybe best prepare for the next disaster that we can stem the destruction of property but more importantly, the loss of life. We must unite our Metro Manila under one government. We can start this the day after Ondoy. This is the Institutional Reform we must undertake.

Errata: the date stamp was previously 27th day. thanks to @cvj for the correction.

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