Disasters: Straight road to a sunken land

Last of two parts

TUWID na Daan, Lunod na Bayan.

That could well be the sad commentary on the past year, when urgent flood control projects were delayed by rebid-ding, denying flood-prone areas of Luzon the needed repairs on dikes, seawalls, riverbank protection, and other rehabilitation work to safeguard lives and livelihoods in the event of more mega-storms like the Ondoy and Pepeng catastrophes which severely damaged such facilities.

In fact, as the Aquino Administration should have known, the same areas devastated in 2009 would eventually be visited by calamity, so infrastructure to protect communities should have been restored ASAP, not unduly delayed for such oversights as fund releases being delayed by a few days.

As of last weekend, the body count from the Pedring and Quiel inundations was near a hundred, with the crop and infrastructure damage of almost P14 billion exceeding the Ondoy-Pepeng destruction. Clearly, the delays in flood control and disaster preparedness have taken their toll.

Besides the repair of flood-control facilities, other crucial disaster preparedness measures were not taken, judging from the soundbites coming out of the Palace and the Cabinet. Transportation and Communications Secretary Mar Roxas spoke of buying rescue helicopters for the Coast Guard, an attached agency of his department.

Good idea. So why weren’t the choppers bought before the rainy season? After all, the state was tens of billions of pesos below its spending limit in the first quarter. And if by some Cabinet oversight, the aircraft was not provided for in the 2011 budget, money could still have been realigned to get at least one or two helicopters.

Presidential Adviser on the Environment Neric Acosta repeated the widely accepted view that ever more powerful storms are a result of climate change. Brilliant. So when will his boss finally convene the Climate Change Commission, one of just a handful of state bodies chaired by the President, to institute measures for adapting to the phenomenon’s destructive effects, including mega-floods and super-typhoons?

Then there are President Aqui-no’s own musings. He wants to see more effective ways of persuading people to leave danger areas before inundation. Right, Mr. President, but surely a better way of addressing this perennial problem could have been concretized over the past year, instead of being contemplated only now.

Another presidential idea that didn’t have to wait for Pedring and Quiel to overflow reservoirs is a dam authority to gather data and make decisions about opening floodgates. In fact, such a setup was already suggested to the incoming government by the Special National Public Reconstruction Commission and its private sector partner, the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation.

Created in 2009 for rehabilitation after the Ondoy and Pepeng mega-storms, SNPRC and PDRF proposed a system of sharing weather and water data and implementing joint responses in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces, then coordinating flood warnings and community evacuations. The scheme and its budget were part of the commission’s transition report to the Palace and the Finance Department in June 2010.

The report also urged the drafting and promulgation of a delta plan for comprehensive land and water management and flood control in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces, plus Laguna Lake. The World Bank is now funding such a study being undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Highways. Hopefully, the appointment of DPWH Sec. Singson as water czar would accelerate the delta plan’s formulation and, more important, implementation.

Critics in the opposition and media have lambasted President Aquino for failing to visibly lead the disaster response effort and visit flood-hit communities. But more than his seeming invisibility during calamities, PNoy’s main fault is the failure to push crucial life-saving strategic initiatives in disaster risk reduction over the past year, including the measures he and his own Cabinet now cite as necessary.

So before the 2012 typhoon season comes, can the government please prioritize three initiatives guaranteed to save lives?

First, purchase and pre-position inflatable rescue boats and amphibious vehicles in flood-prone areas (they are cheaper than choppers and not grounded by storm winds), and accelerate flood control projects.

Second, implement the data sharing and response coordination scheme jointly proposed by SNPRC and PDRF (the latter is still around and can explain the proposal).

Third, accelerate the World Bank-funded delta plan, including water and land management, flood control systems, and disaster response, under water czar Singson.

And most of all, think thrice before canceling flood control projects. Saving lives and livelihoods is immensely more important than scrimping on pesos and centavos.

Do this, Mr. President, and you would save countless lives even before making a single typhoon sortie. –RICARDO SALUDO, Manila Times