MANILA, Philippines—The recent spate of disasters that killed and dislocated thousands of people—a cyclone that swept Burma (Myanmar), a 7.9 magnitude earthquake that rocked central China, and a volcanic eruption in Chile that rained ashes as far as Buenos Aires in neighboring Argentina—should trigger a sense of déjà vu among a people seemingly grown blasé about calamitous events.
It may be said that Filipinos eat typhoons for breakfast. They’re used to the ground-shaking beneath their feet. And of course, volcanic eruptions in this land, where there are some 200 volcanoes, are a dime a dozen. Disasters in this land of disasters are no big deal.
But only the most jaded would find it hard not to see the scars caused by these calamities on the collective psyche. The mudslides in the provinces of Quezon and Leyte remain fresh in the national memory. So does the 1990 earthquake that cut a wide swathe of destruction across Central and Northern Luzon; and the eruption of Pinatubo, a volcano that had lain dormant for more than 500 years until it stirred back to life in 1991, easily the most powerful eruption in the last century, burying whole towns across the towns of Pampanga and Tarlac and vastly transforming the landscape of Central Luzon, and altering global climate for several years with the ashes it threw up into the atmosphere.
Tsunamis whipped up by earthquakes, like the one in December 2005 that drowned nearly a quarter of a million people in coastal villages along the Indian Ocean, are not alien to the Philippines. In the Moro Gulf in 1976 and off Mindoro Island in 1994, such killer waves claimed more than 3,000 and 78 casualties, respectively.
To be sure, Filipinos have seen more than their own share of heartrending disasters, and it is only because of their resiliency and seemingly innate fatalism that they continue to stare nature’s assaults and onslaughts straight in the eye. At times, one would think, they even seem to be wishing for more, like Lear daring the elements to further overwhelm and crush him.
But they cannot really afford to merely brace themselves for more natural disasters. One obstacle to national development is the geographical determinism that consigns the Philippines to being a land of perennial disasters. To ignore this reality is in itself a recipe for disaster.
Thankfully, disaster preparedness is a staple in national and local civil defense, at least on paper and in official rhetoric. Of course, much remains to be done to fully match policy declarations with concrete programs of action and implementation. To be sure, the Philippines is not Burma: it is not ignorant of civil defense and relief operations. It has a working system of disaster preparedness and disaster management. But the results have so far been mixed.
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) has at least 64 stations around the country that detect seismic and volcanic activities. It is linked to the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the better for it to receive and relay information especially during tsunami alerts. Phivolcs’ seismic network was last upgraded in 2002, thanks to a Japanese grant. But there are reports of vandalism of some of its stations.
Weather forecasting by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, Astronomical and Meteorological Administration remains problematic. There’s a need to upgrade severely aging stations and equipment that have seen better days. Making things worse is a poor or corrupt environmental regulation which has failed to check rampant illegal logging and over-logging that have denuded forests and exposed local populations to destructive flooding and mudslides.
The growing frequency of environmental disasters triggered by monsoon rains and typhoons in the last several years points to a worsening regime of environmental regulation that has only abetted the problems of poor weather forecasting. This is very damning considering that typhoons and weather disturbances can be predicted or tracked down better than earthquakes and eruptions. Unless the weather alert system is upgraded and environmental authorities and the government as a whole deal firmly with the enemies of the environment, disaster preparedness in the country will remain a dangerous mockery.
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