Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Covington: Surges By Gary Covington Looking in
#1
The starter raises his arm. All is clear. His arm chops down and they're off! Engines roar, exhausts belch, and tires screech as the pack jostles, barges, and shoves for pole position.
Formula One? A Demolition Derby? Araw ng Dabaw Grand Prix? No, no, and no again. It's cars and bikes unloading from the Samal ferry - a scene that never fails to amaze me.
What's the point? Rushing to get precisely nowhere - a hundred yards on and every driver must stop at the booth to hand in his ticket. Another hundred yards - on both sides - there's a T-junction; a side road joining a major road where every driver should, in theory, come to a complete stop, look left, look right, look left again and then - if all is clear - proceed.
#2
Monday last there was yet another example of the Philippines attempting to run before it can walk - Senator Richard Gordon advocating the purchase of "state of the art weather and geophysical equipment," the idea being that better kit would lead to better weather forecasting which in turn would lead to better disaster management and less social and economic catastrophe. "It is imperative," said the senator, "for the Philippines to have a modern weather forecasting and warning system because of the numerous disasters that hit the country every year."
A word in your ear senator.
Years ago television weatherman Ernie would stand in front of a huge animated weather map - presumably supplied by Pagasa - showing our bit of the Pacific Ocean. On the left would be the string of the Philippine islands; on the right, far out to sea, a swirling typhoon.
"That," Ernie would say, "is Typhoon Anon, moving at about 100 kph and due to make landfall in the Philippines in three days." Three days - surely a sufficiently long period of grace in which to prepare. Then there's the cost in lives and property aspect of violent weather. It's not really the weather that kills and destroys; it's us. Our ignoring the lessons of past disasters; our ignoring basic common sense; our insistence of building in the same old disaster-waiting-to-happen locales.
Might it not be a better idea - instead of spending zillions on new weather forecasting kit - to instead prohibit the building of shanties on the seashore where they are susceptible to the first overlarge wave which comes along? Or wouldn't it make more sense to stop developers building subdivisions on known floodplains? Or from building on or in the shadow of landslip-prone hills?
Forget the kit senator - tighten up the building codes and enforce them. Much cheaper.
#3
It always intrigues me how a certain word takes the public's fancy. Here's George Bush's Iraqi conflict word 'surge' catching on with all sorts of people. Monday last it was the television station GMA exalting over a ratings surge and earlier on no less that the president herself was announcing an infra surge which is Malacanang-speak for the public works budget. This particular surge is to take place over a period of three years - in fact more an amble than a surge but then I suppose infra amble hasn't quite the same snappy ring about it. No.
