Antonio C. Abaya - Lessons from Disasters

The extent of the devastation wrought by Tropical Storm Ondoy on Metro Manila and adjoining provinces cannot be blamed on the Arroyo administration. There was just too much rainwater falling in so short a time â€“ more rain in 12 hours than fall in a normal September.

What can be blamed on the Arroyo administration is the utter lack of preparedness to respond to a disaster of this magnitude. But then that charge can be levied on all previous administrations, too.

Which administration, for example, thought up of the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), a 90-lb weakling organization that has no budget, no office, no staff, no mandate except to coordinate the relief efforts of various agencies plus ad hoc committees at the municipal and provincial levels. It does not even have a full-time director since its head is only ex-officio, in this case, the Secretary of National Defense.

Was it under President Marcos, or under President Aquino, or under President Ramos, or under President Estrada that this toothless wonder was created?

Time to abolish the NDCC and replace it with a full-time agency with a full-time head and a full-time staff and a full-time budget. I understand there is a bill in the Lower House that seeks to create such a replacement. About time.

But from what has appeared in media, I understand that the agency will be named the National Disaster Risk Management Coordinating Agency, or something convoluted like that, and that it will include a policy-making body as well as an executive arm.

Pwede ba, can we make it simple and straightforward in name as well as in functions? How about a simple name like Disaster Management Office (DMO) or Emergency Response Agency (ERA)? NDRMCA, or whatever the House is contemplating, is just too unwieldy.

And haven't we learned from previous experience that having a policy-making body separate from the executive arm in one organization just leads to intramural quarrels and rivalry? We had that conflict in tourism and sports development. No wonder we are woefully lagging in both tourism and sports, compared to our successful neighbors.

Filipinos are notoriously so pre-disposed to quarreling, jealousy and crab mentality that nothing ever gets done properly because bruised egos cannot work together. This negativism has manifested itself even in a successful humanitarian organization like Gawad Kalinga.

Better to make ERA or DMO a totally executive agency, with policy-making the sole prerogative of the Cabinet. Let us not check-and-balance ourselves into immobility, as we often do.

Any prescription for mitigating disasters invariably includes predictable laments over the destruction of our forest cover and calls for reforestation. This lament was strongest during the Cory administration, which initiated a much-ballyhooed reforestation program that parceled out thousands of hectares of denuded uplands for individuals or companies to reforest.

But whatever happened to that? Obviously nothing, since Ondoy and Pepeng caused scores of landslides in Metro Manila, Central Luzon and Northern Luzon that the reforestation program 20 years ago was precisely meant to prevent or mitigate.

But it does not mean reforestation should be abandoned, as it seems to have been. It means that reforestation should be pursued with more vigor and determination, perhaps by the new ERA or DMO, using schoolchildren to nurse the tree saplings, and CMT or ROTC cadets to transplant the saplings to the denuded uplands. Some tree species (like the ipil-ipil) can be propagated by merely broadcasting the seeds by helicopter.

But this is the long haul. We need short haul measures as well. One way is to reduce the use of plastic bags. Some six months ago, we started to refuse to have our grocery purchases at the supermarket to be bundled together in dozens of plastic bags. Instead we have since asked for empty kraftboard boxes, of which the supermarket has hundreds of new ones everyday from their suppliers, to consolidate our purchases.

Kraftboard boxes have many uses even at home and, more important, they are bio-degradable. Plastic bags are forever.

Some 15 years ago, we accepted an invitation from some rich friends to a picnic-swimming excursion in Looc Cove in Cavite or Batangas, just outside Manila Bay, accessible only by yacht or cabin cruiser.

The idyllic surroundings were immediately negated by my first dive into the water: I was suddenly engulfed, unwillingly wrapped, surrounded, almost smothered, by a swarm of plastic bags floating unseen under the water's surface. That literally ruined my day.

Considering the increase in the metro population as well as in their purchasing power since, Manila Bay must now be neck-deep solid in plastic bags, all the way from Navotas to Looc Cove and parts beyond.

The Monster from the Blue Lagoon â€“ make that Laguna de Bay â€“ is not an alien from outer space or an ante-deluvian reptile lurking in the shallows, but tons of plastic bags discarded by rich and poor alike that have clogged up the lake, the rivers, the esteros and the canals and caused the floodwaters to rise as high and as fast as they did.

But how do you get rid of billions of indestructible plastic bags? You don't. You can only reduce their use, by demanding, as we do, the use of empty kraftboard boxes instead, at the supermarket.

Or by reviving the manufacture and use of the lowly bayong, woven from palm fronds, which are bio-degradable and are a renewable material. Perhaps some of those who have been victimized by the floods and have lost their livelihood can be organized into co-operatives to manufacture bayongs. A media campaign, enlisting photogenic celebs, can be launched to discourage the use of plastic bags, in favor of the bayong.

At the other end of the problem, waterways nationwide â€“ but especially in Metro Manila â€“ have to be dredged on a daily basis â€“ even during the dry seasons - of the silt and garbage that have clogged them for decades. Metro Manila is suffering from a severe case of arteriosclerosis and is slowly dying from it. Only dredging its arteries 24/7 and 365 days a year can prevent humongous floods from recurring.

The problem with dredging is that, even if his equipment is physically present at the site, it is difficult to ascertain if the dredging contractor is doing what he has been contracted to do. It is thus open to possible cheating by the contractor, usually in cahoots with someone in city hall or the public works department.

This can be remedied by assigning each dredging project to a civic club or an NGO, which will deploy a team of, say, three members to monitor how many scoops a dredger has made or how many hours a suction dredger has operated, both evidenced by a nearby quantifiable pile of muck on dry land.

This would be more socially meaningful than putting up 4-Way Tests or other self-congratulatory signs all over the place.

And this would make a putative ERA or DMO more effective than the present penniless, staffless, lifeless, homeless, boneless, voiceless, toothless and brainless wonder that is the NDCC.

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