THE devastation brought by super typhoon Yolanda a few years back was an unwanted cut in our nation’s heart then already bleeding from countless natural and human-induced crises.
Lives lost, families broken, damaged houses and properties, businesses looted, nature overturned, survivors in limbo, shocked government officials, are now grim memories etched in our nation’s psyche.
I remember and admired people among us who could make fun of this disaster and hurl positive views as if what happened was a common everyday hazard. Their jokes, text messages, and social media twits certainly ease the tension, fear, and terror in us.
I salute then the media institutions, anti-disaster groups, humanitarian organizations and individuals, environmentalists, foreign development agencies, including some of our hypocrite state officials, who rushed to the frontlines to deliver relief goods and give moral booster.
I remember too and understood well why countless of our brothers and sisters in Tacloban, had to loot commercial establishments, warehouses, and private houses – all because the government assistance was delayed and those that came hardly relieved the mass of hungry citizens.
All of that form part of the colorful spirit of Filipinos; resilient in times of hardships, hopeful in a season of uncertainty, magnanimous in little victories, a warrior in moments of social oppression and neglect, bayanihan in meeting challenges, notwithstanding the few opportunists and vultures who turn disasters into opportunities for personal enrichment.
But more than this illustration of our characteristics in times of crisis, Yolanda raised questions on our nation’s preparedness to face crisis and natural disasters with minimal damages.
More so, that we are an archipelagic nation, and is in the deadly ring of fire.
But long after Yolanda, disasters continue to worsen and become deadly because nothing much has changed in our government’s mindset, strategy and attitude towards disaster and risk preparedness.
It shows our government, more than our people, never learn the lessons from Yolanda; and this simply brings us to its ill framework and strategy on disasters and risks management.
The capability, resources, and technology to face disasters are in the government, not in the people.
The people, especially the communities with high risks, remain unorganized, lack the right orientation on the nature of risks and hazards, and ill-equipped to confront them.
The government sets aside millions of taxpayer’s money annually for disaster preparedness programs. But they don’t help much to prepare people for disasters and ease the impact of disasters.
On the contrary, It is not the government units and agencies that should be given more preparation for hazards or disaster risk management – but the people, their community, especially the ones we consider most-at-risk, because all hazards are community or territory-specific, and the first affected and responder is and should be the community.
When the readiness of the community is high, the potential occurrence of disaster risk is low. When the community is low in readiness both as individuals and community, the potential of disaster risk to occur is high.
When a well prepared and equipped community is caught by any hazard, it is likely they would effectively and quickly face and resolved it before any government agency, NGO or humanitarian organization come.
When the community production system is sound and fair, their community organization is strong and active, their internal structures and systems of support ready and their external links are good, the community can be said to resilient and sustainable and would need less from external groups.
Unfortunately, why do these grim pictures keep on occurring?
The government, the politicians, the fund agencies and even some NGOs are the only ones who are disaster risk-prepared; they are also the ones that are quick to declare which areas should be put under a state of disaster or state of emergency and how much funds should be released for such disaster intervention.
Our communities are often neglected or, if not, ignored at all, at least subject of a small token of social services for high profile media projection. They are good time and treated well only and only during election times. After that, they hardly exist.
In this country, most disasters are not prevented and mitigated. They are even exacerbated by the people and the institutions entrusted with our people’s trust and money.
In this country, what hit us worst every year are not nature-based hazards but those caused by greed, arrogance, pride, and lust.