‘Bayanihan’ soothes Bicol’s despair

Severe Tropical Storm “Kristine” (international name: Trami) wreaked havoc on a large swath of Luzon by submerging many areas in catastrophic floodwaters or burying them in mud or volcanic mudslides (lahar). According to its category, Kristine was supposed to be weaker than a typhoon.

The Bicol region, affectionately known as Bicolandia, has suffered the most, not least because it was in the direct path of the storm, but far from it. Kristine made a landfall way above Bicol, in Divilacan, Isabela, on Oct. 24.

But due to the months’ worth of rainfall that fell in one day, torrential rains quickly flooded roads, homes, and rice fields.

It was President Marcos, during a visit to Naga City, who provided a clearer comparison between Kristine and a typhoon whose severe flooding traumatized many residents of the National Capital Region (NCR). He said the amount of rainfall in the region brought by Kristine doubled that of Tropical Storm “Ondoy” in 2009. Mr. Marcos then raised the issue of revisiting the Bicol River Basin Development Program, which was started by his father in the ’70s but discontinued in 1986.

By the time Kristine exited the country on Oct. 25, more than four days after it began lashing the eastern part of the country as a tropical depression, 125 people were killed, 115 injured, and 28 missing, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC).

The report, issued on Tuesday, Oct. 29, revealed that the nonstop rains and strong winds brought by the storm inundated rivers, causing landslides and widespread flooding in Luzon, leaving 756 areas from Ilocos to NCR still mired in floods.

To sum up, Kristine’s devastation has reached crisis levels. Besides the high death toll, which makes the storm the country’s deadliest this year, Kristine affected 7.1 million individuals, with close to a million people displaced, half a million marooned in evacuation centers, and some 400,000 forced to shelter elsewhere, the NDRRMC said.

Damage to farms and schools has reached P4.36 billion, said the agriculture and education departments last Saturday, while class suspensions affected 19.5 million students (“‘Kristine’ damage reaches P4.36B,” News, 10/27/24).

CNN captured the state of helplessness and paralysis that engulfed Bicolandia and parts of Batangas, reporting on Oct. 28 that “the Philippines is prone to extreme weather. But few expected Tropical Storm Trami to be this devastating.”

Quick response. This time, however, the response of the national government was quick and commensurate, although it was mostly the floods, broken bridges, and landslides along highways that hampered the rescue operations and relief efforts.

Hours after Kristine left, Mr. Marcos was already doing an aerial inspection of the Kristine-hit areas in NCR, Cavite, Laguna, and Batangas. The following day, on Oct. 26, Mr. Marcos was in hard-hit Naga, distributing P80 million worth of financial aid to officials of the city and Albay province.

He brought with him members of his Cabinet, including Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian, who came with 35,000 food packs. By Oct. 28, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Bicol had managed to release more than 200,000 boxes of family food packs to flooded Bicolanos, part of the total of 672,837 FFPs released by the DSWD central office to disaster-affected regions.

Local government units’ (LGUs) emergency responders, police and military personnel, Philippine Red Cross, private organizations such as the Inquirer, former vice president Leni Robredo and her Angat Buhay nongovernment organization were able to lend a hand to storm victims. The Maritime Group, along with many NCR police officers, are still in Bicol, helping to rescue residents trapped in isolated areas and delivering food packs and water.

It’s this “bayanihan” spirit (working together) that unconsciously kicked into motion in times of disasters among Filipinos that has been on full display since last week. Without question, Luzon was overwhelmed and highly unprepared for the stronger and more frequent storms that come with climate change.

But caravans of rescue teams, truckloads of relief goods, fuel, and water tankers were seen on TV and social media making a beeline on flooded roads in Bicol. Scenes of Bicolanos being evacuated from the roofs of their flood-submerged homes in Camarines Sur and Albay by rescuers on rubber boats painted with the names of LGUs from far-flung provinces tug at the heart.

The juxtaposition of Kristine’s devastation with these scenes provides a glimpse of hope in a picture of gloom and doom, where poverty and LGU’s neglect once again come to the fore. For sure, there must be an accounting of what went wrong—where did the P132 billion Bicol flood control budget go? Why did the LGUs in Bicol turn a blind eye to their constituents living in geohazard areas? That time will come, but for now, let’s continue to extend prayers and help to Kristine-hit areas in whatever way we can.

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For comments: mubac@inquirer.com.ph