Wednesday, November 21, 2007 Wenceslao: Mb Ave Maria 5, Lando and Pag-asa By Bong O. Wenceslao Candid Thoughts
BAD weather always exposes vulnerabilities, whether those of man or of nature. Before storm Lando passed Cebu virtually unannounced Monday, big waves caused the sinking of Camotes-bound mb Ave Maria 5 last week.
Report on the sinking was eased out of Sun.Star’s front page only because it happened on the day of the Batasan blast.
I have not been to Poro town in years, but stories of the tragedy evoked memories of times past. Riza Borlasa, mentioned as owner of mb Ave Maria 5, is a cousin and the Ave Marias have long been part of travel to Camotes.
Decades have passed since the late Benjamin Gonzales, Riza’s father, bought his first boat after his retail business soared.
Pumpboats plying the Cebu-Camotes route are big and sturdy. I remember Provincial Board Member Agnes Magpale, who is representing the fifth congressional district where Camotes belongs, assuring people that the pumpboats are safe, which is true. I can thus say that what happened to mb Ave Maria 5 was an exception to the rule.
What was not an aberration was the entry of Lando late Monday afternoon.
While Cebu is not facing the Pacific Ocean, typhoons hit it from time to time.
According to the weather bureau’s Oscar Tabada, Pag-asa first warned people about a low pressure area. Unfortunately, the low pressure area became Lando, the storm, as it sped towards Cebu.
One consolation there was that while the storm packed winds of up to 100 kilometers per hour, it moved fast. That explained why the strong winds lashed Cebu City for only I think more than hour. I mean, it could have been worse. I therefore consider Lando more as a test on our capacity to withstand some battering and less of a tragedy.
Cebu has not hit been hit flush by a typhoon in a while. All of us, and more so government officials, thus loosen up on disaster preparedness. Structures, for example, are built without considering strong winds, and landslide/flood-prone areas not identified early on and measures to mitigate possible damage from continuous rain not put in place.
Did anybody, including City Hall officials, bother to monitor the construction and check the stability of that giant Christmas tree at the Fuente Osmeña?
We were just lucky it toppled inside the rotunda and not into the street outside. How about those billboards? It looks like after billboard-related issues in Metro Manila, we have not learned anything.
As for the supposed failure of Pag-asa to warn us about Lando’s sudden entry, I say our reaction has become laughable. Suddenly, all of us seemed to have become weather experts in an instant. Pag-asa should have done this and that. Pag-asa is inutile. So went the Pag-asa battering. All that stems from the belief Pag-asa is perfect, God-like.
The last time I checked the dictionary, “forecast,” the word identified with Pag-asa’s work, means “to anticipate, calculate or predict (some future events or condition) usually as a result of rational study and analysis of available pertinent data.” Pag-asa makes predictions on the basis of meteorological observations.
But its bottom line is still “anticipation,” “calculation,” “prediction”---in short, hit and miss. So why rave and rant like mad against it when Pag-asa missed?
