We begin the new year with a mixed bag of goodies and booby traps. And, hey, before you raise your eyebrows too quickly and too high, this is a good place to start. Before, we just came from booby trap to booby trap – in all nine years of Gloria.
The devastation caused in Mindanao by Typhoon “Pablo” is, for now, largely measured by the number of dead, injured and missing people. The number of recovered bodies has reached 714, says the NDRRMC. About 900 more are reported missing. Thousands of others suffer from wounds and various forms of injury, not to mention deep trauma, but only a few can be attended to in clinics and hospitals. The scale of the destruction is becoming clearer as the attention shifts to the staggering number of families who have lost their homes and their livelihood. The prospect of starvation and disease looms before them.
Change subject, if only out of an instinct for survival.
The effects of Typhoon “Pablo” in Mindanao revealed to the nation what can happen when Nature’s wrath is coupled with unabated extraction of natural resources. Hundreds of people were killed after flash floods, accompanied by fallen trees and boulders, swamped entire communities in Compostela Valley. Hundreds of others remain missing.
The recent floods spawned by the monsoon rains that hit Metro Manila and parts of Central Luzon have triggered widespread finger-pointing. Many were quick to blame the squatters who had built their shanties along the banks of rivers, creeks and estero. The problem has become an urban nightmare prompting the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and its 16 cities and one municipality to agree to relocate some 100,000 squatter families by 2016. But who is to blame for the spread of squatter colonies? Poverty and that stupid Lina Law which should be repealed.
The record-breaking severity of the recent natural disasters in the Philippines demonstrates the economic and humanitarian consequences of climate change. Though the country’s physical geography—its location in the Pacific Ring of Fire and the typhoon belt—contributes to the risk factors associated with living in the Philippines, social factors also add to these natural crises. For [...]
