Learn from ‘Yolanda’

If our Facebook news feeds are of any indication, it is an understatement that Filipinos are considerably concerned about Supertyphoon “Yolanda” and reports of its aftermath. This is completely understandable considering even our hardy nature, all too often buffeted by typhoons, earthquakes and disasters of a manmade kind (think of Janet Napoles and her ilk). Yolanda was indeed extraordinary, packing such brute force that brought even the hardiest among us to our knees.

As of this writing, many of us are posting status updates in aid of the relief effort, or extolling the indomitable, storm-proof spirit of the Filipino. While I certainly welcome this rallying together in the face of disaster, I would also encourage ourselves to take a more long-term mindset. Our culture has to make disaster preparation a lifelong learning priority.

While there may still be a number who would scoff at the evidence, the scientific consensus reveals the reality of manmade climate change. This is apparent for nations such as the Philippines that stand in the way of monstrous, savage typhoons. Our experiences with “Ondoy,” “Pablo,” “Sendong,” and Yolanda reflect the harsh realities that we and our children will face with manmade climate change—stronger typhoons and the potential for lethal devastation. The magnitude of this problem is way too big for neither individual acts of kindness nor our storm-proof spirit to solve.

That said, I still recognize the good done by many of our countrymen, our scientists at Project NOAH, our climate negotiators seeking a cap on greenhouse gas emissions, our underappreciated weather forecasters, as well as our civil service and military personnel who have been prepositioning relief goods way in advance of typhoons. As many of us, often in the safety of our homes, rush to condemn government incompetence via Facebook or Twitter, we fail to recognize the work of many that saves lives. We ought to appreciate the efforts of our heroes who are shifting our disaster discourse from the reactive to the proactive.

Nonetheless, I also recognize that much has to be done, and must be done, in order to adjust to this “new normal.” Our culture has to be mobilized in order to create a collective, lasting adaptation to disaster. Just as the Ivatan and our indigenous peoples have made adaptation to changing weather conditions a part of their cultural DNA, we have to rediscover our historical roots in order to survive. In one of the ABS-CBN telethons, Ted Failon was wise in suggesting the translation of “storm surges” to local languages. Our wealth of languages and oral traditions have to be deployed in making the realities of this “new normal” understandable to our people.

Moreover, our K-to-12 education program has to explicitly include disaster preparation as part of the curriculum, repeatedly hammering the message to schoolchildren that preparation literally saves lives.

Universities must direct their intellectual capital to efforts to understand natural hazards and become nerve centers of their local communities.

The entire apparatus of government has to bear down on natural disasters as a matter of civil defense and national security. With more losses forecast from natural disasters, any economic development can never be enough for a country beset with the need for frequent reconstruction.

Citizenship education can be built around the big idea of disaster preparation, emphasizing that good citizenship is not just political consciousness but “bayanihan” on a greater scale in identifying natural risks and minimizing their impact in order to save lives.

As it is, most accounts of our adaptation focus on weathering natural disaster through individual or familial narratives, heroic and inspired by religious faith, but nonetheless reactive. It is time we wove these into a national narrative of lifelong preparedness. Initiatives such as the disaster kit of “Eat Bulaga” (“SOS/Saklolo on Sakuna”) and GMA-7’s “I M Ready” come to mind as we create that national narrative of a people hardy and prepared for the impact of natural calamity.

Creating a culture of adaptation is also intertwined with demanding a responsive government. As many in Facebook rightly point out, the magnitude of the sums lost to corruption could have been used to build better flood-control infrastructure, fund early-warning systems, and provide for the reconstruction of homes, farms and businesses. Unless we fight for better institutions and the rule of law, repeated appeals to the Filipino spirit will soon grow weary. Disaster adaptation will simply become a reactive affair, with finger-pointing at the end of every natural disaster further deepening cynicism among our people.

At the end of the day, disasters such as Yolanda offer us lessons to learn when it comes to adapting to Nature’s wrath. Unless we collectively learn these lessons, we are bound to see the same trail of death and destruction. This can befall any family at any place and at any time—so we better learn those lessons quick.

Patrick Alcantara, 29, finished his European Masters in Lifelong Learning with distinction from the Institute of Education, University of London, and Deusto University under an Erasmus Mundus grant by the European Commission.