After relief come the tough decisions about the future

Scenes of devastation and misery caused by immense flooding in recent weeks are reminiscent of the Great Flood of 1972 that submerged virtually the entire plains of Central Luzon and parts of Metro Manila.

A combination of typhoons and non-stop monsoon rains in July of 1972 dumped an estimated 1,800 mms of rainfall that month into an area equivalent to about 20,000 square kilometers of mainly agricultural land. By the time the sun shone again in the second week of August, large tracts of land from Pangasinan in the north to Rizal in the south, and from Bataan in the west to Nueva Ecija in the east looked like veritable lakes, punctuated occasionally by rooftops and green crowns of tall trees. I was on my way to my hometown of San Fernando, Pampanga for a weekend break when the 1972 floodwaters suddenly rose to dangerous levels. The Philippine National Railways train that I took turned out to be the railroad service’s very last trip to the north as rampaging waters later washed out many sections of the rail tracks. But my train at the time managed to reach the PNR station in San Fernando, from where it could no longer move on. After wading through chest-high floodwaters and finding my family’s house already half-submerged, I was able to locate my parents and siblings in a nearby school that served as an evacuation center. I spent the next three days dividing my time in the evacuation center and wading through the floods looking for local officials for stories that I managed to send to my employer at the time, Business Day, via the Philippine Long Distance Telephone office in my town. My return to Manila was exciting too. I joined a journalist from another Manila newspaper whom I bumped into at the PLDT office in alternately walking through flooded highways, riding on bancas to get to the next town, sleeping in houses of kind-hearted barangay officials, and finally crossing the rampaging currents of Pampanga River at Arayat town to get to Cabiao, Nueva Ecija, where buses for Manila were available. Explosive situation The articles I wrote after that adventure warned of a possible combustible situation owing to the hardships that the Great Flood was bound to cause on the people of Central Luzon. The agriculture sector and farmers were the biggest losers. Most of the places I found myself in did not feel the presence of the government. With resources not enough and government hardly prepared to cope with the mammoth needs for timely rehabilitation and recovery, people’s misery subsequently turned into anger and disenchantment. Then-president Ferdinand Marcos, at the time only months away from the end of his second and last term, saw that as an opportunity to clamp down on the growing dissent and prolong his tenure by placing the country under martial law in September 1972. The effects of the epic floods of 1972 and 2009 are not at all different. There is loss of people’s lives and heavy damage to farms and crops in the rural areas and to private property in cities and towns. With floodwaters lingering, many areas – from coastal villages in northern and western Luzon to towns in Rizal near the Laguna Lake, and even in some parts of southern Mindanao – are not expected to stage any recovery any time soon. And even in those areas where the floods have receded, there is the threat of disease (many of the casualties in 1972 succumbed to typhoid and cholera epidemics and not to the rampaging floodwaters) not only in the evacuation centers but also in residential areas that are still in a state of chaos and in need of sanitation facilities. Iron-fist tactics It would be a tragedy if the Arroyo administration, which is due to end in mid-2010 after the May election, will also resort to iron-fist tactics in tackling the difficult reconstruction period in the aftermath of the Great Flood of 2009. Martial law, even in another form or shape, should not be an option this time. Understandably, there will never be enough resources to go around to satisfy the urgent needs of flood victims. The “state of calamity" that President Gloria Arroyo has declared nationwide, the state should have sufficient elbow room to ensure the movement of people and goods to areas that are in greater need than others. As seen in the past week, prices of basic commodities can actually be kept stable under the spirit of that state of calamity declaration. Beyond the period of relief goods, there is need for the government to at least set the framework on which new beginnings can be pursued. There is obviously a strong need to now pursue a serious review of development strategies in areas that are flood-prone, given that climate change now appears to have rendered current models obsolete. Last week, one suggestion that made sense was that from the World Bank. Citing its own experience in assisting countries that have gone through severe difficulties from natural disasters, the World Bank said “building back better" could be the ideal strategy in reconstruction efforts. After the initial humanitarian relief operations, the bank said, the longer-term work of reconstruction and restoring people’s livelihoods often continues for months or years after a disaster. It is possible that “bad decisions can get locked in early on" during the reconstruction process, the bank said, and urged that governments get involved in the “building back" process as soon as a disaster occurs. “If people are living in an unsafe area and their houses are destroyed, for example, it is important to make sure that they rebuild their homes in less vulnerable places," the World Bank suggested. “No one can control natural hazards like storms and earthquakes, but a well-planned reconstruction can prevent people from living in the flood plain or building houses that are unsafe." Good ideas abound There is no shortage of ideas from local experts on how to build communities that can withstand natural disasters like floods and earthquakes. For instance, in the rebuilding of areas along the Marikina River, one of the worst hit by the September floods, architect Felino Palafox Jr. urges applying certain controls. Palafox is one of the experts who put together a 1977 study, “Metro Manila Transport, Land Use and Development Plan", that listed areas in the urban center that were deemed “unsuitable for development." The study, which was submitted back then to the Department of Public Works and Highways, said, among other things, “the unsuitable areas for development, where pressures are nevertheless considerable, are primarily in flat coastal areas to the north where extensive areas are liable to flooding and where increased pressure for reclamation are likely to exacerbate this problem." This and other relevant studies in the past should now be dusted off and evaluated in the light of more recent prognoses from various reports about future implications of climate change. Two such reports, separately released early this year by the Asian Development Bank, listed the Philippines among countries that could be the “most vulnerable to climate change." One of these studies, “The Economics of Climate Change", says that the effects of climate change in Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, are already evident. For instance, there has been an increase in surface air temperature between 1951 and 2000. The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events have also increased in recent decades, the report notes. “This climatic changes have led to massive flooding, landslides, and droughts in many parts of the region, causing extensive damage to property, assets, and human life," the report says. “Climate change is also exacerbating water shortages in many areas, constraining agricultural production and threatening food security, causing forest fires and degradation, damaging coastal and marine resources, and increasing the risk of outbreaks of infectious diseases." Food production Famine, even at a localized basis, is a possibility owing to the vastness of the farmlands affected by the recent flooding. In Zambales and Nueva Ecija, areas known for food production, some farmers are accepting the fact that their rice crops that are due for harvesting in a few weeks, are now lost. Similar experiences are being reported by other farmers in northern Luzon provinces that were hit twice by Typhoon “Pepeng". The government has quickly announced it would import rice as needed. While that is certainly a good option, albeit one that shows desperation, the Philippines seems to be getting a bad image among other developing countries owing to the impact of its rice imports on the price of the commodity in the world market. Kevin Cleaver, assistant president of the United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development, was last week quoted by Inter Press Service as saying that “many developing countries made wrong choices" in responding to the food crisis last year. Some countries imposed price controls on farmers while “other countries did stupid things," he was reported as saying. Cleaver was further quoted as saying: “The Philippines started to buy massive amounts of rice and stuck it in a warehouse. Each time they went to the market, the price went to the ceiling…so poor countries were crushed." In the Arroyo government’s proposed budget for 2010, the National Food Authority is one of the few agencies that will get a big increase in new appropriations. Under the proposed 2010 budget, NFA will get P8 billion, double its allocation for 2009. That is a sizeable warchest for its grains-import mission, which might succeed in further earning animosity from other importing nations. Nevertheless, the job at home after the typhoons and floods is enormous. It definitely will require clear objectives and firm determination from leaders of government, as well as private and non-government institutions. Political will does not necessarily include martial rule in leading the country out of this calamity. - GMANews.TV