Massacre replays

“He meant Bethlehem,” a friend mused. To mark the “Massacre of the Innocents” feast Wednesday, he was re-reading Jeremiah. “But Cagayan de Oro and Iligan flood victims are just as dead as those Herod massacred.”

“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning,” the prophet wrote six centuries before the first Christmas.  “Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Warned in a dream, the Magi didn’t tip off Herod on the Child’s whereabouts. “Instead, they  returned to their home country by another way.” So, Herod’s soldiers killed 200 male children below 2 years old.

In Mindanao, 1,080 died from Storm “Sendong.” The final tally may top 3,000, the Inquirer reported. On Christmas Day, 1,979 were still missing. Hope that they survived has withered.

Individuals, local governments and civic groups responded swiftly. The United Nations appealed for P1.2 billion in aid. Churches made second collections to help.

Iligan “has no Christmas lights because there is still no power in most places,” e-mailed Sisters John Paul, Elizabeth and Anthony. They have worked nonstop in the diocese’s efforts to help refugees. “No Christmas tree because trees were cut by illegal loggers and caused flash floods. No belen for the Holy Family because most houses were destroyed. No caroling because children lost their voices crying for help. No ham and queso de bola because food is rationed for survivors who wait for hours to receive their share. No soft drinks because water is running out.”

“God dwells among our suffering sisters and brothers,” the nuns add. “People showed concern and shared with each other. This will be the most meaningful Christmas ever.”

“Wala’y Pasko karon (There is no Christmas now),” Cagayan de Oro Mayor Vicente Emano snapped in contrast. He is ready to face probers for inept disaster response.

Consider the corpses in context. Relief systems are strained from previous disasters. An “Unseen Slaughter of the Innocents” persisted over the years.

Out of every 1,000 children, 20 never make it to their first birthdays, just like infants in Ecuador and Armenia. Sure, 20 is an improvement on the 56 infant mortality rate of the 1990s. But it lags behind Malaysia’s 0.8.

Local Herods doubled infant deaths in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao to 42. This figure matches Namibia’s death toll. Medical staff attend only half of every 100 births here. In contrast, 99 of 100 Thai mothers have medics during delivery.

There has been little outcry. Why? Because shrouds were in city slums or farm shacks. Shriveling from chronic hunger does not make the headlines of TV newscast, as do deaths  from a typhoon’s fury. Out of sight, out of mind.

When Sendong hit, 870,000 persons in Central Mindanao had already been uprooted by earlier flooding. The southwest monsoon interlocked with side effects from previous typhoons “Dodong” and “Egay.” Water hyacinths clogged major Mindanao waterways, aggravating floods in 10 provinces and five cities.

Affected were the same communities uprooted by armed conflict in 2008, the Unicef notes. “Inadequate water and sanitation and congestion are recipes for disease outbreak even as aid flows in.”

Now, the refugee load has surged.

“Do these calamities interlock with another tragedy?” asked former FAO forester Patrick Charles Dugan. “This is failure to identify principal on-site human activities.”

Dugan continued:

“Already (and as usual) media reports, columnists and cartoons point to illegal logging and mining as the culprits. Very convenient. Very newsy. Very superficial. Very short-sighted. Also, very wrong.

“And (again as usual) most politicians, civic groups and others echo what media report. But ask any competent person who inspected watersheds that drain into rivers that engulfed whole villages. They’ll tell you: Destructive land-use practices on a massive scale created conditions that made this disaster inevitable.

“Hundreds of thousands of hectares of steep slopes within watersheds were converted into pastures and corn farms. These vegetative cover cannot adequately stem soil erosion. Nor do they hold rapid runoff of rainfall.

“If these land-use practices continue, similar tragedies will  recur… There are no quick fixes to problems decades in the making.”

The solution? Not simple. Not newsy. Lots of hard work in a sustained implementation of practical soil and water conservation measures. Land-use practices must allow corn farmers and ranchers to continue making a living without degrading further the environment.

Example? Use “sloping agricultural land technology.” The Mindanao Baptists Rural Life Center won the Ramon Magsaysay award for this innovation.

Another example: Forest restoration through assisted natural regeneration (ANR). The Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Forest Management Bureau received from the Food and Agriculture Organization the internationally recognized Edouard Souma award for ANR.

The flood that devastated Matina Pangi in Davao City this year was basically caused by improper land-use practices and degradation of watersheds, writes former United Nations econometrician Edmundo Prantilla. “Pat Dugan is right: Our planners know the solutions… But we seem to lack the discipline equal to the task. ‘’

The common thread is families allowed to settle willy-nilly  in hazardous areas like sandbars. Also, there are five Filipinos today where there was one in 1940. Is carrying capacity being exceeded? And is generous disaster relief our only response?

If so, then we will hear again “Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”