General Admission
Typhoons, floods come yearly; gov’t absent all the time
By Al S. Mendoza
DO you remember having a year without a typhoon hitting us?
I guess, not.
Do you remember having a year without a flood hitting us?
I guess, not.
Do you remember having a year without a bad government hitting us?
I guess, not.
I fired those questions and provided the obvious answers myself in lieu of “Ondoy,” the latest killer typhoon that claimed nearly 300 lives (and still counting?) in Metro Manila and outlying provinces on Sept. 26.
But the point I really want to pounce on?
Killer typhoons come yearly and, every year, too, we hardly see our government do anything to target no-nonsense disaster-preparedness efforts when killer twisters come pounding us.
Seems like we are masochists?
Year in and year out, we just wait to be bombarded by the elements? Bamboozled left and right? Become virtual punching bags of “Milenyo,” “Frank,” “Labuyo” and now, “Ondoy?”
From President Quezon up to President GMA, killer typhoons have become yearly occurrences, climate-change or not.
Is there anyone from our so-called honorable presidents, from Quezon to GMA, who had ever seriously thought of exerting serious efforts to address preparations during times of calamity?
Earthquakes can’t be predicted, all right.
But typhoons?
Well, do we not quickly spot them even if they are hundreds of miles away from our shores, from making landfall?
Don’t tell me Pag-asa has been pulling our legs all these years?
The point is we know that we get hit by at least 15 typhoons a year from the time of Quezon (his birthplace alone, Baler, is a favorite take-off point of many devastating storms)- and even before him, I believe, because we belong to the typhoon-belt.
But, heck, we have yet to see a government – from Quezon’s administration up to the present – that is so adept, if not ultra-sensitive, at addressing disaster-preparedness schemes.
While typhoons are very much present yearly in this benighted land of ours (no less than 20 typhoons strike us annually), every time we see ourselves getting battered by one storm after another, the government is virtually very much absent each time the battering is happening.
Our leaders, so-called, love to come in only when the devastation is over, when the agony and misery of typhoon-stricken victims unmistakably resonate and start piercing the conscience of those in power – if they ever have a conscience at all.
In short, we are good only at reacting, never at being really prepared. And, sadly, most of the time, our reactions are chaotic to the point that mob-rule hits evacuation centers at will due to systemic faults. Hey, that doesn’t include graft and corruption creeping into donation coffers!
And, yes, as I said, do we not have floods every year, not only in Metro Manila but also now in many parts nationwide?
Name me one president of this republic, from Quezon to GMA, who has seriously attacked this yearly malady?
Grotesquely, we allow ourselves to be haplessly hit by vicious storms yearly, to be swallowed at times by killer floods – and then what?
When the devastation is over, it’s back to normal.
And normal is, like, seeing Atchie Glue having dinner at a swanky Nuyok restaurant, spiked by caviar that is lavishly washed down by champagne to the consternation of Kuya Leonie Galvez.
More ogre than Ondoy.
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