TO ONDOY, PEPENG, AND QUEDAN:
THE PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE IS THE SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MANKIND AND THE FORCES OF NATURE.
THE PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE IS THE SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MANKIND AND THE FORCES OF NATURE.
Bratja: Let no flood tear us apart, my brother. *sniff*
The Homeless, the poor and the hungry - evicted by the forces of nature.The blame is on everyone and not solely on the government. No earthly institution has the power to mandate that a storm should visit the country it presides over. Moreover, no citizen is so "ignorant" as to make poverty an excuse for not knowing that the Marikina area, and all other areas near rivers and dams, are practically "basins." To put it simply, such areas are oftentimes below sea level and they suspend water because of their depth. This fact justifies why real estates in Marikina are cheap. Common knowledge tells us that the land there may "sink" anytime. A person would have been walking around the area not knowing that everyday it is losing ground.
Constructing a waterway is a good solution to channel trapped water out into a bigger reservoir. Unfortunately, in view of next year's election, "some people" had to prioritize their self-interests over the common good. I guess it is about time to rethink structural development projects and priorities. Come to think of it, there are so many roads, flyovers and bridges along flood-prone and flood-infested areas in the Philippines yet these have done nothing to spare the country from calamities of such magnitude. Ondoy and Pepeng may have been laughing at us, saying "Fools! It takes more than asphalt and cement to drive us away." And the millions spent on commercials and advertisements to program the preferences of next year's set of voters would have had done so much to improve the quality of development projects prior to the Ondoy tragedy. How easy for them to "plan" for the 2010 election over sustainable development.
On the other side of the coin, how easy for the victims to blame everything on the government but themselves. Did they ever care enough to know why of all places it was their city or barangay of residence that suffered the typhoons' full brunt? In the Visayan dialect, that kind of attitude is called dawat limpio. They keep receiving from the government (albeit with some deficiencies), but they hardly ever think of their contributions to it. Look at some of the masses, living along the periphery of river banks, bays, and dams. Some of these areas are not designated for relocating our poor brethren, whose densely piled houses proximately encouraged more water from Ondoy to clog up in the basin of Manila. Lucky for them, until Ondoy these people were enjoying tax holidays especially from the crippling taxes imposed on private property and land ownership. Thanks to Ondoy, they were temporarily given a break from their drinking and gambling sprees, and from indulging in sloth and the vices attached to it.
Not like flooding is something new to this world. The Bible has one of the oldest records of flooding in history. Noah and the ark he built to survive the great flood should have been a warning to the predominantly Christian Philippines. Yet Filipinos must have just confined the story of the Great Flood to its theoretical and amusement aspects. Notwithstanding skepticism, Ondoy and Pepeng were nothing compared to the flood recorded in Genesis, and even to the history of flooding in the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Mesopotamia. In India, the Ganges (Ganga) river flows through 52 cities and 48 towns and during the year 1998, its flooding casualties were three times more than Ondoy and Pepeng put together. China's Huang Ho and Yangtze Rivers had been flooding since time immemorial. The great Chinese rivers killed inhabitants of nearby villages and farming areas (to think that there was hardly any "squatters" during their period and cities were not so congested). Yet the Chinese were able to do something about their situation by building a Grand Canal System, which redirected flood waters to agricultural areas. The Grand Canal also fostered unity as it served as a linkage between strongholds and their allies. Finally, the rest was history. Besides the Tigris and Euphrates, which I'm certain have their fair share of flooding, even the Great Amazon in Brazil discharges 3.4 million gallons of water per minute into the Atlantic Ocean. However, being a rainforest makes it least inhabitable so I surmise only wild animals and perhaps a few wandering natives and nomads were washed away by the Amazon floods. Why should the ancients let the forces of nature bully them when they had not desecrated it then as much as the present generations have today?
Constructing a waterway is a good solution to channel trapped water out into a bigger reservoir. Unfortunately, in view of next year's election, "some people" had to prioritize their self-interests over the common good. I guess it is about time to rethink structural development projects and priorities. Come to think of it, there are so many roads, flyovers and bridges along flood-prone and flood-infested areas in the Philippines yet these have done nothing to spare the country from calamities of such magnitude. Ondoy and Pepeng may have been laughing at us, saying "Fools! It takes more than asphalt and cement to drive us away." And the millions spent on commercials and advertisements to program the preferences of next year's set of voters would have had done so much to improve the quality of development projects prior to the Ondoy tragedy. How easy for them to "plan" for the 2010 election over sustainable development.
On the other side of the coin, how easy for the victims to blame everything on the government but themselves. Did they ever care enough to know why of all places it was their city or barangay of residence that suffered the typhoons' full brunt? In the Visayan dialect, that kind of attitude is called dawat limpio. They keep receiving from the government (albeit with some deficiencies), but they hardly ever think of their contributions to it. Look at some of the masses, living along the periphery of river banks, bays, and dams. Some of these areas are not designated for relocating our poor brethren, whose densely piled houses proximately encouraged more water from Ondoy to clog up in the basin of Manila. Lucky for them, until Ondoy these people were enjoying tax holidays especially from the crippling taxes imposed on private property and land ownership. Thanks to Ondoy, they were temporarily given a break from their drinking and gambling sprees, and from indulging in sloth and the vices attached to it.
Not like flooding is something new to this world. The Bible has one of the oldest records of flooding in history. Noah and the ark he built to survive the great flood should have been a warning to the predominantly Christian Philippines. Yet Filipinos must have just confined the story of the Great Flood to its theoretical and amusement aspects. Notwithstanding skepticism, Ondoy and Pepeng were nothing compared to the flood recorded in Genesis, and even to the history of flooding in the ancient civilizations of India, China, and Mesopotamia. In India, the Ganges (Ganga) river flows through 52 cities and 48 towns and during the year 1998, its flooding casualties were three times more than Ondoy and Pepeng put together. China's Huang Ho and Yangtze Rivers had been flooding since time immemorial. The great Chinese rivers killed inhabitants of nearby villages and farming areas (to think that there was hardly any "squatters" during their period and cities were not so congested). Yet the Chinese were able to do something about their situation by building a Grand Canal System, which redirected flood waters to agricultural areas. The Grand Canal also fostered unity as it served as a linkage between strongholds and their allies. Finally, the rest was history. Besides the Tigris and Euphrates, which I'm certain have their fair share of flooding, even the Great Amazon in Brazil discharges 3.4 million gallons of water per minute into the Atlantic Ocean. However, being a rainforest makes it least inhabitable so I surmise only wild animals and perhaps a few wandering natives and nomads were washed away by the Amazon floods. Why should the ancients let the forces of nature bully them when they had not desecrated it then as much as the present generations have today?
This is the reality of the world and the reality for humans. We are just part of the flow: it extends in labyrinthine direction and oftentimes is difficult to fight.
More Illustrative Cases:
Mud-bath was the least inescapable option.
Here Ted Failon was yapping about floating bodies and coffins at a cemetery in Botolan, Zambales in the wake of typhoon Pepeng. It couldn't get any more macabre than this.
Fujiwara (Fujiwhara) Effect: The near-encounter between Pepeng and Quedan scared most Filipinos out of their wits like a cruel practical joke on a country that has barely recovered from physical, emotional, psychological and not to mention material and financial distress began by Ondoy.
'To be human is to do something as hopeless as going against the flow of the world' (FMA, 1999; 2003)
Childish, but it's a statement that gives hope. Literally, what are people compared to nature? On the other hand, what's the worth of nature without us people? Indeed, this is SYMBIOSIS!
Mud-bath was the least inescapable option.Here Ted Failon was yapping about floating bodies and coffins at a cemetery in Botolan, Zambales in the wake of typhoon Pepeng. It couldn't get any more macabre than this.
Fujiwara (Fujiwhara) Effect: The near-encounter between Pepeng and Quedan scared most Filipinos out of their wits like a cruel practical joke on a country that has barely recovered from physical, emotional, psychological and not to mention material and financial distress began by Ondoy.'To be human is to do something as hopeless as going against the flow of the world' (FMA, 1999; 2003)
Childish, but it's a statement that gives hope. Literally, what are people compared to nature? On the other hand, what's the worth of nature without us people? Indeed, this is SYMBIOSIS!
