On Tropical Storm "Ondoy"

[Photo: ABS-CBN News]

Ondoy kills lives and damages properties.

It was Saturday, September 26, the rain was so hard and it took roughly few hours, people where drowned, others were on their house’s rooftop, some panicked, and flooded the affected areas that kills lives and damages properties.

The event would let us bother of the grounds why it happened. Naturally, rain occurs every now and then, all-year round. According to weather forecasts, there is line-up of tropical storms from A-Z, we are still on the ‘O’ and others are yet to arrive in the Philippine archipelago.

The horror

The Typhoon “Ondoy” directly damages more than 70 fatalities and some over 330,000 people not found yet, and still counting. Reports from the state weather bureau Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services (PAGASA) said that the storm is worth a month of downpour.

Reports from PAGASA related that Ondoy, with winds of 85 kilometers per hour and the rush of wind of 100 kph, hit the provinces of Aurora and Quezon at around 11 in the morning that day, and then move through Central Luzon at 19 kph. It announced that a month’s worth of rainfall fell in just six hours which was the most recorded in over 40 years.

The affected

Millions of people have had witnessed the tragedy caused by the typhoon. The said calamity will surely be remembered from unexpected events to particular images. There were desperate men and women balancing on electricity cables to avoid the chest-deep water below, cars were pulled every which way by raging floodwaters, many were stranded on there rooftops, and others alike.

Fame and fortune providing no defense against the elements, may it be poor ones or the fortunate, no one escaped without experiencing such horrible incident in their lives. For the hundreds of thousands severely affected by the floods, that day will mark to the minds of the affected. The number of hours one waited to be rescued, the disturbing sight of floodwaters entering one’s house, the exact moment when one surrendered to the elements, and abandoned their belongings particularly their houses or vehicles.

Under the said crisis, almost 80 percent of Metro Manila was under water as estimated by authorized personnel from the Philippine National Red Cross, as published by national dailies. A state of national calamity has been declared over 27 provinces in seven regions, as well as in the NCR, reports from the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC).

The reports added that the provinces included are Mountain Province, Ifugao, and Benguet (CAR); Pangasinan, La Union, and Ilocos Sur (Region I); Isabela, Quirino, and Nueva Vizcaya (Region II); Aurora, Nueva Ecija, Zambales, Pampanga, Bulacan, Tarlac, and Bataan (Region III); Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon (Region IV-A); Mindoro Occidental, Mindoro Oriental, and Marinduque (Region IV-B); and Catanduanes, Camarines Norte, and Camarines Sur (Region V).

On the other hand, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro has issued an NDCC Circular to chairpersons of Regional Disaster Coordinating Councils in Regions I, II, III, and CAR, directing them to "undertake necessary response measures" to avoid loss of lives and destruction of property.

A lesson to learn

While it is certain that the total payment, in terms of lives lost and number of families displaced, will rise, it is also probable that will add up to amount many other victims from the said tragedy. The incalculable damage wrought by Typhoon Ondoy brings us with the irony at the center of our fate as a disaster-prone nation.

We are very good at organizing relief operations once disaster strikes, but we are a failure at preventing disaster in the first place. To be sure, it was a natural disaster and there was nothing any individual or institution could have done to prevent it from happening just as it happened. But its effects were compounded by human behavior and Ondoy, too, was a man-made calamity.

PAGASA was quick to suggest that the unusual volume of rain in Ondoy’s wake could possibly be attributed to climate change. It is logical, or at least sensitive, enough. But while we cannot blame ourselves for the fact that the rains fell, we have no one else but ourselves to blame for the fact that the floodwaters did not quickly settle down.

Because of the way we dispose of our trash, because of the way we use rivers and other waterways as dumping grounds, because we as a people have still not learned how to be safety-conscious and invest in disaster prevention, we bear responsibility, not for the rains, but for the floods.

Over the weekend, over a hundred relief centers sprang into action, with thousands of concerned citizens immediately offering donations or volunteering their services. It can truly be said that Filipinos have a fine tradition of quickly and efficiently organizing for disaster relief work. Unfortunately, that tradition runs counter to the culture of contentment, of anything-goes thinking, that helps explain why the Philippines is disaster-prone in the first place. It is a culture that creates man-made calamities.

One fact remains, it is a lesson to be learned!

[Reports from: ABS-CBN News, Philippine Daily Inquirer]