A call to arms

My first memories of a flood are probably of when we were still living in Jade Valley, a low-lying subdivision located along the Davao River. If I remember it right, the place was visited by floods for four times over. They said the worse flood was during the fourth time when the water reached as high as the rooftop.

To me, however, it was the third time because I had experienced it myself---by the fourth flooding, we had already moved out of Jade Valley. On March 15, 2000 (Araw ng Davao!), around 2 o'clock in the morning, somebody was knocking hard on the door, telling us to evacuate as the water was rising fast. When we went out of the house, bringing nothing but the clothes we're wearing, the water was already knee high.

We safely evacuated in Juliville, another subdivision adjacent to Jade Valley. For several days, my siblings and I stayed in my grandmother's house, in Lanang, but my parents stayed in Juliville, and waited for the water to subside.

[caption id="attachment_1090" align="aligncenter" width="458" caption="An aerial view aboard a Philippine Air Force chopper shows devastation brought by Tropical Storm Ketsana in Cainta, province of Rizal , eastern Manila. (Photo courtesy of PSDMN---Private Sector Disaster Management Network)"][/caption]

So we were spared from the ravages of the flood. But when we came back, I heard many stories from my friends. Some recounted how hard it was to wait for rescue that they weren't sure whether it would come. Some recounted how they staved off their hunger and thirst. Others told me how they tried, if vainly, to save their furniture and belongings. Last week, those memories came flooding as I watched on TV, and saw the flooding in many parts of Luzon.

On September 27, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that "at least 73 persons were killed and nearly 70,000 families were displaced by massive flooding after tropical storm Ondoy (international name: Ketsana) dumped the heaviest rainfall on Metro Manila in more than four decades, officials said Sunday."

According to the latest report of ABS-CBN, however, "The government on Tuesday has confirmed a total of 246 people dead and nearly 40 people still missing following devastating floods and landslides in Luzon caused by tropical storm Ondoy."

This kind of event brings out the best in people---ordinary or not. As the anthropologist Michael Tan put it, "Ondoy resurrected the spirit of bayanihan." There were stories of celebrities risking their lives to save others---celebrities and non-celebrities alike. (Take the couple Judy Ann Santos and Ryan Agoncillo.) There were even rescuers who died just to take the victims out of harm's way.

But not everything went well. The media outfits' responses were quick. The government's was not.

"Ondoy underscored the woeful state of our disaster preparedness and our disaster prevention," said the political analyst Ramon Casiple. "Despite the huge disaster budget, the government has failed to adequately establish the necessary infrastructure for handling extreme weather situations. The failure to install Doppler weather radar that is capable of measuring rainfall, for example, is a glaring lack in the Ondoy typhoon monitoring. The perennial problem of clogged sewers and antiquated flood control system in Metro Manila is another."

"The sensitive questions that will be asked," Casiple said, "are: Where did disaster funds, including contingency funds, go? How prepared is the government to handle major disasters, both in their preventative and occurent stages? To what extent does the government appreciate global warming and climate change in its over-all policy, including disaster preparations?"

The best outcome of this if the government will come to its senses and start zeroing in on what matters most. Remember that God always forgives. Man sometimes forgives. But nature never forgives.