The devastation wreaked by cyclone Ondoy this weekend hit close to home. It impacted our immediate families and circle of friends, and it disrupted that sense of “normalcy” that the latte-sipping classes of Manila had grown accustomed to. I cited in a previous blog article how the flashfloods and mudslides that killed 5,000 in Ormoc in 1991 and almost 2,000 in 2006 resulted in such immense human tragedy as to put a bit of perspective around what Ondoy had destroyed. Yet in terms of the amount of media coverage, digital sharing, and pledges to “learn” from what had happened, Ondoy had definitely made its mark on Philippine history.
There is much to lament and so many to blame. But the sad reality of it all is that all the neglect leading up to the lack of preparation and lack of facilities to deal with this disaster we are now seeing happened across many administrations, each one contributing their own quantity of doing nothing. So there is no one person to blame — only our own collective aversion to exercising a bit of foresight. To give credit to our corner of the blogosphere many have risen above petty politics and focused on what is important. Many have highlighted how we move on, rebuild, and apply what we had learned.
As I wrote earlier:
My hope is that we appreciate the second chance we and our immediate circle of family and friends get to apply a bit of learning in the next decade or two. More importantly, let us pause and remember those who don’t get a second chance but nevertheless depend on people like us (we who benefit from a bit more capacity and opportunity) to learn from their tragedy.
Some of us however don’t see things that way. At Jolog Central, one can find the following articles that collectively represent a plumbing of lows that puts the Filipino “blogger” and more disturbingly, the otherwise noble profession of journalism to shame. Ellen Tordesillas is a noted member of the Philippine Press and a personification of everything that is wrong about that community as these articles of hers demonstrate:
Where’s Mikey in Ondoy’s aftermath
Gloria Arroyo’s Ondoy fashion statement
Ilang rubber boats ang $35,000 na ginastos sa hapunan ni Arroyo sa New York?
Arroyo’s latest gimmick: packs her bags, turns Malacañang into refugee and relief center
One need not even go beyond the titles of these articles to gain some insight on what is going on over at that space. There is something to be said of a person who could produce not just one but four articles in series fixated on exploitatively channeling the anger and grief surrounding the Ondoy disaster into her partisan politics.
Indeed, this is the weather according to people like Ellen Tordesillas:
Image courtesy: UtakNgTilapia.com
As such, Ben Kritz observes in one of his random thoughts while we have a short break between disasters how…
The Jolog Queen is an extreme example of a fatalistic, short-sighted view of things that afflicts the people in general, and it’s a trait that is not a good one for the citizens of a tropical nation prone to natural disasters. Attention from the root causes of disasters – or at least, the man-made conditions that aggravate them – is quickly diverted. Huge disasters that cost hundreds or even thousands of lives in the provinces are forgotten almost as soon as they happen. When it happens in the capital, the story has a little bit more shelf life, but not much. When Typhoon Milenyo struck Manila in 2007, it sparked a wave of anger against the obnoxiously-outsized billboards that litter the landscape and fell apart to wreak havoc on the city in a wind that wasn’t even typhoon-strength; despite stern calls for correcting the problem, two years on the Manila skyline looks just the same as it always has. The flood of September 26 was made much worse by the terrible condition of Manila’s incomplete, refuse-choked flood-control system. But as even the President proclaimed, “The recent calamity brought about by typhoon Ondoy was an extreme event not likely to happen again in our lifetimes.” It’s over, let it go, in other words. Until the next time it happens.
Indeed, we consistently fail to focus on root causes because of our fixation on easy targets. It’s time we turn away from the warm comfort of ego candy that people like Ellen Tordesillas feed us and start chewing on the ampalaya where the real stuff that nourishes the brain resides and where the truly important advocacies and initiatives will be revealed.
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scary as hell. I hope you guys are fine. another storm is coming.
I just hope our government officials and politicians will finally do something to resolve this flood problem in metro manila. Metro manila can not afford to ignore this horrible situation..they have to do something..clean up the drainage maybe..and the people should help by not throwing anything that can clog the drainage system.
prayers for you who are affected.
Tondo did relatively well:
http://www.op.gov.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25582&Itemid=2
I hope others would follow this.
You know, you read through the blog threads and you see people with good ideas. Getting doppler radars on line. Re-forestation. Education about trash. Enforcement of logging bans. Moving urban development to Clark-Subic and stopping the insane over-building in Manila.
One wonders why legislators have no such ideas, after Ormoc.
One wonders how many doppler radios the fertilizer money could have purchased.
One wonders if a person who throws trash on the street connects with a dead child buried under mud. It seems so harmless, doesn’t it, each individual single sole little piece of plastic. Innocent.
Joe
erratum: radios = radars; old brain short circuit
I bet they do, just that the passion for self interest is so overwhelming that not an ounce of energy is left for them to even think about their constituents…
Joe:
The long and short of it is that voters didn’t vote for people who have solutions (people the likes of Nink Perlas) because they are not winnable.
Thus, there no legislators who can provide solutions.
When people ask for platforms (indicators of solutions), you get smartasses who dismiss the need for platforms.
Well, guys – go ahead and straighten out the mess using your gut! Merese.
If someone has money, here is a list of rescue rubber boats.
http://www.defender.com/category.jsp?path=-1|215570&id=339563
http://www.defender.com/category.jsp?path=-1|215570|215697&id=814407
Also need to budget for (1) trailers and the trucks to pull the boats to the areas of need; (2) training of the appropriate personnel.
Here is a European site (used merchandise);
http://inflatables.apolloduck.com/boats.phtml?view=1&layout=1&id=24&fx=USD&minl=457.2&type=&minv=&maxl=0&limit=10&maxv=&sort=0
To use the “Defender” site, just click here,
http://www.defender.com
Then click on Boats/Motors; then click on a boat-brand-icon (AVON and Zodiac are military-grade).
Just as point of reference, responsibility for having (flood)water-rescue units should be delegated to provinces (and especially the cities that have rivers traversing through them).
Here is a California fire department that maintains water-rescue unit.
http://www.menlofire.org/waterrescue.html
The requirements include properly-trained personnel.
approximately 35 personnel; All personnel are required to pass an annual swim test. The swim test consists of a 500 yd continuous swim, tread water for 15 minutes, the ability to use throw able rescue devices, retrieve a 30 lb weight off the bottom of a pool among other things.
Everyone should have a simple emergency kit with first aid kit, extra set of clothes, canned foods, biscuits, dried fruits, flashlight, extra batteries, rope, rain gear etc. Keep it light. An occasional family emergency drill will also help.
how can we ever have a good equipment for rescue units when everyone on the chain of command demands for a 10% cut…
10% para sa presidente
10% para sa senator
10% para kay congressman
10% para kay mayor
10% para kay general/colonel
etc etc etc
maswete na kung meron pang matitirang 10% para sa mga equipment…baka nga mga gwardya manghihingi pa ng pangyosi at pang inum hehe
We Filipinos have the culture of “ningas congon”. Many plans. Many
debates. A few month from now. Everything will be forgotten. Until
the next disaster. Back to the usual squablings of politics, which
is our major preoccupation. By the way, where are the candidates? I
wish their houses would have been flooded. And the floodwaters took
them to the Pacific Ocean. We would be better without them.
There are people (very few) where having fun is more important
than being cautious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lBakSKg8cA&feature=related
Follow the leader:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeynDkY8abI&NR=1
What can you expect from Ellen Tordesillas? She’s a blogger, she’ll do anything to get the hits. She’s also a tibak masquerading as a blogger. Obviously, she’ll blame all the society’s problems to the president.
We’re a nation of whiners.
Journalists in the Philippines show too much of their prejudice when reporting the news. Ellen Tordesillas is a prime example of such. She has a strong following and is very irresponsible in feeding them with hate and narrative fallacies or humour mongering. This is very destructive to the Filipino psyche. People look up to her and think that anything she says is true.
So few of the journalists pass as investigative. They do not research facts first before broadcasting things. Again, it goes back to the culture of letting emotions get in the way of logic.
Even the popular broadcast news Bandila provide too much coverage of one particular candidate, even to the point of following every move of their fiancé or girlfriend. They even show political bickerings first before covering news of consequence to the general public like road accidents. It goes to show that people have become immune to a single loss of life and it has to take a tragedy of huge proportions to get their attention.
The Philippine legislative body has not been able to legislate a guiding principle for flood management. No team approach or bayanihan approach is present in Congress. The Philippines is a typhoon prone country with abnormal rainfall ever since. Its not like this is all NEW that we can blame mother nature. It is very crucial that there are people/government department or independent executives managing the country specific to flood management. Lots of resources online and experience consulting companies available to assist.
The news abroad like what happen to other countries flooding problem and recently New Orleans should be enough information to learn from. Maybe they all watch wowoweee……
And Maybe , we should not pass the RH bill for population control and prevention, people will die anyway from NATURE-L cause. We have no budget because it is all loss from corruption and worst, we don’t have the brains to learn from others…
I’m just on fire… humiliated and very embarassed. I will seriously dye my hair blonde for halloween… goodnite.
Last night on TVP, there was a report about a landslide that trampled one community in Angono, Rizal.
The fact that a landslide occurred didn’t shock me, what shocked me was when the reporter interviewed two housewives, one has seven kids, and the other has 9 (yes, NINE) kids and they are all living in make-shift dwellings.
Sorry for being crass, but umm… don’t they have other hobbies?
Big families with a dozen children is common in third world country. Big family in poverty defines the country itself. The poor lacks the proper education to choose the right hobby. The also lack financial resources to pay for their hobbies.
In the bigger picture, when a country is poor, it cannot allocate large areas for parks to entertain children and families except a mass media can easily be created thru wowoweee…Wowoweee is in a smaller facility.
To connect my view to the flooding in Manila, it simply means that the required recreational parks for “hobbies” do not exist. Even flood plains to absorbed water during rainfall were not reserved but allowed to develop wthout disclosing to public its vulnerability and risk. Simply put, the country has no productive good hobbies to bost morals except the hobby of corruption and politicking.
correct my grammar as you please..
Big families creation has got to stop.
As for hobbies… Jon Limjap and I are scale modelers. I draw manga style, and there are so many other hobbies people could do. Our society’s machismo culture also prevents men from taking up good hobbies.
If hobbies means going to girlie bars or doing drugs, then shoot the hobbyist. The national affixation on basketball need to be broken too.
What??!! The most ego centric blogger in FV universe wants a turning away from the “warm comfort of ego”?
The One who lives by Ayn Rand-ese mantra that selfishness is a virtue, altruism sucks, now wants to abandon the ego?
Holy freaking manna banana!
Ok ka lang Benigno Ego?
Just goes to show how this great flood can humble even the most brilliant individual in the universe. What a blessing.
Tranquil,
I think you misinterpret Ayn Rand. She did not espouse selfishness, she espoused the freedom of the individual to perform without being fettered by the deeds or expectations of other. To apply it here, Benign0 is free to opine as he wishes, for his brain is rich with perspective and his style does not have to fit within your expectations and limits. Your inclination to try to fit others into a box is exactly what Ms. Rand objected to. That is not called selfish; it is called being free, as an individual. Her perspective was shaped by a youth devoid of such freedom, which is why she prized it so much.
Joe
Joe,
Do you think benignO’s youth the same as that of Ayn Rand’s? If ‘yes’, I believe you. That figures then.
And Joe, my youth was as “free as a bird”, could that be the reason why I’m so shy and so humble that I’d chosen to just be a simple guitarist rather than be an elite like you guys are?
Well, Bert, my fine man,
Benign0′s youth has nothing to do with anything; who cares how he became him, there is no need to try to make him into someone else. Just as people should accept you for you.
But, though your thinking is a’stinkin’ on this issue, the fact that you can play the guitar redeems you. I strum now and then, and would do much better if my brain were more intuitively connected to right and left hand doing completely different things.
Joe
Joe,
Rand held that the only moral social system is laissez-faire capitalism. Her political views were strongly individualist and hence anti-statist.
Rand scholars describe her style as “literary, hyperbolic and emotional,” while stressing the importance and originality of her thought.
So very Benigno.
And Joe,
Rand also wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism. The book covers several issues of the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand. Some of its themes include the identification and validation of egoism as a rational code of ethics, the destructiveness of altruism, and the nature of a proper government.
Joe, your defense of Ayn Rand’s freedom to be left alone by limiting authority called government fly in the face of the Wall Street financial disaster – no thanks to the egoistic and greedy financial wizards – which almost brought your country to its knees if not for federal intervention. Alan Greenspan himself was a former disciple of Randian economics which might explain why he tolerated all those “wizardy” in wall street.
I am not trying to fit Benigno in a box. I am pointing out his inconsistency in criticizing Ellen Tordesillas for alleged ego wrapping when the bloated man himself is ego-filled.
tranquil:
given that Wall Steet was egoistic. the success of its ego lies in the inability of other egos to keep Wall Street in check or hold it accountable. guess who the other egos are.
There was no checking BongV. It was assumed then that laissez-faire economics is the best mechanism for capitalist system. It was assumed that men are capable of moral bounderies for greed and that the system could self-rectify for future failures. Greenspan allowed players all the elbow room it needs to operate.
tranquil:
Adam smith was quite clear that laissez faire is built on the presumption that men have moral boundaries. Therefore, if one were lacking then those boundaries have to be built. Note that Smith opposed any form of economic concentration (such as exhibited in wall street) because it distorts the market’s natural ability to establish a price that provides a fair return on land, labor, and capital. The deeper implication is whatever Wall Street was doing it was anything but laissez faire.
More from wikipedia
Tranquil,
You seem to be saying Ayn Rand was wrong because the US had a financial collapse and therefore BenignO should be someone else, the “better person” you would want him to be.
Who is self-involved in that expression?
For myself, egoism is not selfish, it is the freedom to live to be the best one can be, without bending to the whims and wills of others. Government laws and regulations can be good or bad, depending on context. I’m not Ayn Rand, nor do I subscribe to her philosophy, but I certainly understand her point. I admire the woman’s intellect. She is consistent, for sure. Brilliant for sure.
Furthermore, you seem to ascribe negativity to being emotional, a chauvinist’s view if ever there were one. Emotions are what make poets poets. We all have them; they can oft be called “passion”, that which distinguishes deep people from shallow.
As for Benign0′s inconsistency, one ego calling out another, you are certainly free to make that observation. For myself, I appreciate his perspectives, no matter what sense of self-importance they are wrapped in. You see, he makes me THINK. More than any other writer here . . .
Joe
Individualism is a whole world better than groupthink, guys. Think about it.
Meanwhile, the Jologs Queen is going nowhere real fast with her GMA hate campaign. She seems to be a lover of hate. :-P
You mean benignO’s blogsite has more hits than Tordesillas’ blogs?