It might have been war. What made it shocking was not the sight of bodies strewn on the ground, some of them on the streets, frozen in the miasma of death, wrapped in a paint of mud like a macabre version of Madame Tussauds’ exhibits, it was the sight of people drifting by them without casting a glance at them. Either they were in a daze themselves, having lost loved ones to the fury of Nature, or the first wave of shock and nausea had passed, leaving them numb to the sight of death where death had no right to be. Like war.
What a time for it to happen, in the pit of Christmas when children and their parents were caught in the pit of sleep dreaming of births and gifts. Can you imagine the horror that filled the hearts of the parents in particular when the waters burst into their beds and took all of them away? They had been warned about the floods, but no one imagined the floods would come in a rush. They had imagined the waters would rise slowly, giving them time to make for higher ground if they needed to. One survivor, who lost his wife and three children, spoke of it that way, sobbing his heart out. It’s one of those times when you wonder whether you’re lucky to be alive or not.
In the scheme of things, “Sendong” wasn’t the worst storm to have howled across this country, nor was it the worst disaster to have visited us. As furious goes, it cannot compare with Typhoon “Uring,” which caused the horrific Ormoc landslide in 1991. That one swept an entire village into the sea. The total toll of that catastrophe was more than 7,000 men, women and children, their twisted bodies dotting the shore like driftwood in the aftermath.
In the scheme of things, Sendong wasn’t the worst disaster to have befallen our hapless land, but tell that to Sendong’s hapless victims in Cagayan de Oro and neighboring places. The pain of losing a loved one is unimaginable, whether it is in conjunction with 400 or 7,000 others.
It is horrifying as much for us as for the residents of Cagayan de Oro and neighboring places and not just because of our capacity for empathy. It is horrifying in the thought that what happened to them could also happen to us. Ondoy already gave us a hint of it. These days, the question of dire things to come has ceased to be one of if, it has become one of when.
It might have been war, what we saw in Cagayan de Oro, and it was. We have been at war for a long time now, and these are its effects. We have been at war for a long time now, and the casualties have been mounting. We have been at war for a long time now: With Nature. It is a war we cannot win. It is a war that is sealing our doom.
We have had no lack of disasters in the past, some far more mind-boggling than today’s. But never in tremendous abundance, dizzying succession, or terrifying ferocity. The speed at which one vicious attack of Nature is coming on top of the other is breathtaking. Undersecretary Graciano Yumul of the Department of Science and Technology already warned about this a few months ago. In the next 20 to 50 years, he said, “the dry seasons will get drier and the wet seasons wetter. What we used to consider as abnormal we should now consider as normal.”
The 20-50 years may be optimistic. Only a few months ago, the International Energy Agency warned that the planet had only five more years to avoid “being trapped in a scenario of extreme weather events. At current levels, rising fossil energy use will lead to irreversible and potentially catastrophic climate change.”
Already the attacks of Nature upon us are coming in profusion. But it’s not as if we’re the innocent victims of a war not of our making. We are a contributor to it. The attacks of Nature on us are not unprovoked. They are retaliation for what we ourselves have done to it.
What caused the tragedy in Cagayan de Oro was the same thing that caused the tragedy in Ormoc and the tragedy in Infanta. The last took place also shortly before Christmas in 2004, a landslide that buried Infanta in mud, destroying homes and killing more than 300 people. What caused all of these things was the one thing the Occupy Wall Street people are now fighting against: greed. Which in turn caused the wholesale destruction of the one thing that could have prevented them: trees.
Illegal mining did play a part too, as Neric Acosta, presidential adviser on environment, points out. But that was nothing compared to the deforestation of the watersheds in Lanao del Norte and Bukidnon, which feed into the major rivers of Mindanao. Without trees to absorb the water and prevent soil erosion, the waters came tearing down into Cagayan de Oro like an avalanche. Cutting a swath of death and destruction, a sight we are more and more becoming used to, a sight we are more and more becoming numb to.
It used to be that whenever you spoke of the environment, people thought of tree-huggers, and whenever you called for environmental awareness, people thought you were inveigling them to indulge in a pastime fit only for those who had nothing better to do. Well, those times are past, or should be. All these disasters that have befallen us must have shown us by now that the environment is as vital to us as the air we breathe, we might as well not have air as not have trees. All these cataclysms that have visited us must have taught us by now that protecting the environment is not a matter of choice, or preference, it is a matter of necessity, or life and death. We don’t learn that lesson, then we will learn another one, whether we want to or not. That is the biblical warning, or prophecy:
As you sow, so shall you reap.