Are killer typhoons like “Yolanda/Haiyan,” unburied corpses, and traumatized survivors screaming to get out the “new normal”?
Malacañang said the official number of deaths was 2,360 as of noon Friday. More than 11.3 million people were affected nationwide. The typhoon lopped 5 percent off the country’s gross domestic product as it hopscotched through the islands.
Nor will this typhoon be the last. “The global climate crisis … is deepening,” noted Nobel Laureate Al Gore. “We are now entering a period of consequences.”
“Sendong/Washi” ripped through Cagayan de Oro and Iligan in 2011, inflicting 1,453 deaths. A year later, “Pablo/Bopha” flattened much of Davao Oriental and Compostela. Before them came “Frank,” “Milenyo,” and “Reming.” In 1991, “Uring” tore at Ormoc. Over 8,000 died, as today’s memorial recalls.
Mean temperatures have edged up 0.14C a decade. The world is warmer than it has been at any point in the last two millennia. By the century’s end, it will likely be “hotter than at any point in the last two million years.” Sea levels here have risen by nearly half an inch—triple the global increase, note University of Colorado scientists.
Is a deforested Philippines the “new normal”? Forest cover slumped from 21 million hectares in 1900 to 6.5 million by 2007. Erosion jacked up flood-related disasters. In 2011, President Aquino banned logging in natural forests. The edict is patchily enforced.
In a “protected” 900-hectare timberland of Santa Josefa, Agusan del Sur, officials found last October 400 newly cut logs. “Why interfere with this petty business?” an angry resident yelled. Hot logs were uncovered in neighboring Barangay Sayon.
The timber was covertly moved to a next-door sawmill owned by a politician, Inquirer Mindanao reported. Yet, Pablo had earlier ripped through the same area and killed three. “They did not learn their lesson.”
Only native forests reduced flood risk, the journal Global Change Biology reports. “Plantation forests had the opposite effect,” wrote lead author Cory Bradshaw. The distinction is vital as more storms loom ahead.
There are five Filipinos today where there was only one in 1940. Cities reflect this population surge. Before Yolanda/Haiyan, Tacloban was four times its 1990 level. Bloated cities have become “urban time bombs,” says Florida’s Extreme Events Institute.
“Slow-onset impacts” included overfishing, overdependence on certain crops, and overextraction of ground water. In 2009 alone, typhoon-related costs amounted to 2.9 percent of GDP. “They have been rising each year since,” notes Secretary Lucille Sering, who leads the Climate Change Commission.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned, in its 2001 assessment, that climate shifts will trigger yet fiercer storms. “Scientists are now 95 percent sure that climate change is driven by human action,” this year’s 5th assessment report adds.
“So, why wasn’t the Philippines more ready?” wrote Max Fisher of The Washington Post. “Quite simply, this storm was just too big, with winds well beyond 200 miles per hour and sea levels surging across coastal communities. No country could absorb it unharmed.”
Widespread poverty cripples the capacity to deal with crisis. The Philippines is ranked 165th in the world by GDP per capita—just below the Republic of Congo. The challenge, though, goes beyond just the national treasury’s size.
Much of today’s analysis smudges the core issue of embedded corruption. Was it normal for some senators to pocket P8 of every P10 in their pork barrel? Senators Bong, Johnny, Jinggoy and Bongbong will clam up. But yesterday’s structured sleaze turned thousands into today’s desperate climate refugees.
Some lead a “double life” by giving money to the Church while stealing from the state, Pope Francis said over the weekend. They deserve to be tied to a rock and thrown into the sea. They are “whitewashed tombs.” A life based on corruption is “varnished putrefaction.”
Yolanda/Haiyan provided a backdrop of “sobering reality,” Christiana Figueres, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told delegates of 189 countries gathered in a Warsaw stadium starting Monday. “There are no winners and losers. We all either win or lose in the future we make for ourselves.”
“What my country is going through as a result of this extreme climate event is madness,” the Philippines’ Yeb Sano told the other delegates at the conference. They must untangle deadlocked negotiations to craft an agreement in Paris come 2015.
This agreement will mandate both developed countries and possibly emerging economic powers, like China and India, to considerably reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global warming beyond 2C.
This year’s conference has two prime ministers and two presidents attending. They come from the vulnerable Pacific islands of Tuvalu and Nauru (which could be swamped by rising sea levels), and Africa’s Ethiopia and Tanzania.
Only 134 of the 189 countries at the conference sent ministers (Lucille Sering represents the Philippines). The outcome is unclear.
While we bury the dead, we must retool for tomorrow’s deadly storms. Local government units are the main bulwark. Diverted aircraft carriers to aid from abroad are the exception.
Many LGUs pilfer medicine. In San Jorge town in Samar, the mayor tried to buy P2 million worth of unneeded overpriced medicines. The young physician sent there under the Doctors to the Barrios program, who refused to sign the purchase order, was threatened.
“Climate change is personal,” Ateneo’s Tony La Vina wrote from Warsaw. “If we fail again, Yolanda/Haiyan would be nothing compared to the coming storms.”
* * *
E-mail: juan_mercado77@yahoo.com