Things to do
Things to do
Updated 00:44am (Mla time) Dec 05, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 5, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
WE have often chided the President for issuing laundry lists of things to do during moments of national import, instead of offering the nation a bold, inspiring vision. But in this time of calamity, such a list is exactly what we need from President Macapagal-Arroyo, a list of steps to take-immediately or in the next few weeks-to hasten the country's recovery from the natural disasters of the last two weeks.
Her appeal to the people to unite in the face of the recent tragedies is timely, but in itself it is not enough. This is in part because the over-simplifications that drive political rhetoric are already hard at work. A mere two days after typhoon "Yoyong" exited, it has become conventional wisdom to blame both the practice of illegal logging and the New People's Army for the floods and the landslides.
The truth is much more complicated than that. Both illegal loggers and the NPA (the government says the communist rebels are illegal loggers themselves) bear part of the blame. But commercial or legal logging is not without fault, either. And some local politicians and businessmen helped create the conditions on the ground that aggravated the disasters.
If the over-simplifications drive post-disaster policy, then the government cannot hope to stop similar tragedies in the future.
There is a pressing need, then, to find out exactly what happened. This pursuit of the truth will take time; judging from sorry experience, a whole lot of time, because every other senator and congressman and executive official would want to have his say, preferably before the cameras.
But we cannot afford to be distracted from the tasks at hand; that is why the entire country needs to focus on the immediate and the near term, and that is where the President's laundry list comes in.
The most immediate items on that to-do list concern rescue and relief operations:
1. The spell of good weather between the last typhoon and the next "low-pressure" disturbance should not distract the government and the non-government organizations it is working with from continuing with the rescue attempts; there may yet be victims who survived the mudslides that overtook a portion of Dumingan town in Aurora and killed a hundred, for instance. In the one or two days left before the onset of another storm, rescue must be the undisputed first priority.
2. A close second would be relief. It is critical that the flow of relief materials continues, but it is crucial that the relief centers in the calamity areas must be made safe and secure. The worst thing that can happen in the next few days is for another evacuation center to collapse. (The one at Real cost over a hundred lives.) If any such center is at risk, the evacuees and the relief materials must be moved to a safer place. But such centers are at risk also from the outbreak of diseases. It is imperative that, for the sake of the living, the dead must be immediately buried. And that hygiene standards must be, however heroically, maintained.
In the next week or so, the President must also insist on temporary measures that will help prevent similar tragedies or help account for last week's. These initiatives may include the following:
3. The meteorological agency Pagasa should fill in the gaps in its forecasting ability by increasing frequency and forging short-term linkages with institutions that have advance equipment. What is to prevent Pagasa, for instance, from supplementing its three daily forecasts with, say, updates from CNN or Nasa, properly attributed and qualified?
4. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources should identify all the Timber License Agreements, Industrial Tree Plantation Lease Agreements, Industrial Forest Management Agreements, and Socialized Industrial Forest Management Agreements that awarded logging concessions in Aurora and Quezon.
5. The Department of Defense should begin a comprehensive review of the government's disaster-management plans, in particular, to explore better ways of coordinating with NGOs and other civil-society groups which take disaster-preparedness seriously.
And so on and so forth. In helping the storm-struck stand on their own feet again, the government must be specific and time-bound about its short-term goals-before the deluge of politics swamps us again.
Updated 00:44am (Mla time) Dec 05, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 5, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
WE have often chided the President for issuing laundry lists of things to do during moments of national import, instead of offering the nation a bold, inspiring vision. But in this time of calamity, such a list is exactly what we need from President Macapagal-Arroyo, a list of steps to take-immediately or in the next few weeks-to hasten the country's recovery from the natural disasters of the last two weeks.
Her appeal to the people to unite in the face of the recent tragedies is timely, but in itself it is not enough. This is in part because the over-simplifications that drive political rhetoric are already hard at work. A mere two days after typhoon "Yoyong" exited, it has become conventional wisdom to blame both the practice of illegal logging and the New People's Army for the floods and the landslides.
The truth is much more complicated than that. Both illegal loggers and the NPA (the government says the communist rebels are illegal loggers themselves) bear part of the blame. But commercial or legal logging is not without fault, either. And some local politicians and businessmen helped create the conditions on the ground that aggravated the disasters.
If the over-simplifications drive post-disaster policy, then the government cannot hope to stop similar tragedies in the future.
There is a pressing need, then, to find out exactly what happened. This pursuit of the truth will take time; judging from sorry experience, a whole lot of time, because every other senator and congressman and executive official would want to have his say, preferably before the cameras.
But we cannot afford to be distracted from the tasks at hand; that is why the entire country needs to focus on the immediate and the near term, and that is where the President's laundry list comes in.
The most immediate items on that to-do list concern rescue and relief operations:
1. The spell of good weather between the last typhoon and the next "low-pressure" disturbance should not distract the government and the non-government organizations it is working with from continuing with the rescue attempts; there may yet be victims who survived the mudslides that overtook a portion of Dumingan town in Aurora and killed a hundred, for instance. In the one or two days left before the onset of another storm, rescue must be the undisputed first priority.
2. A close second would be relief. It is critical that the flow of relief materials continues, but it is crucial that the relief centers in the calamity areas must be made safe and secure. The worst thing that can happen in the next few days is for another evacuation center to collapse. (The one at Real cost over a hundred lives.) If any such center is at risk, the evacuees and the relief materials must be moved to a safer place. But such centers are at risk also from the outbreak of diseases. It is imperative that, for the sake of the living, the dead must be immediately buried. And that hygiene standards must be, however heroically, maintained.
In the next week or so, the President must also insist on temporary measures that will help prevent similar tragedies or help account for last week's. These initiatives may include the following:
3. The meteorological agency Pagasa should fill in the gaps in its forecasting ability by increasing frequency and forging short-term linkages with institutions that have advance equipment. What is to prevent Pagasa, for instance, from supplementing its three daily forecasts with, say, updates from CNN or Nasa, properly attributed and qualified?
4. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources should identify all the Timber License Agreements, Industrial Tree Plantation Lease Agreements, Industrial Forest Management Agreements, and Socialized Industrial Forest Management Agreements that awarded logging concessions in Aurora and Quezon.
5. The Department of Defense should begin a comprehensive review of the government's disaster-management plans, in particular, to explore better ways of coordinating with NGOs and other civil-society groups which take disaster-preparedness seriously.
And so on and so forth. In helping the storm-struck stand on their own feet again, the government must be specific and time-bound about its short-term goals-before the deluge of politics swamps us again.
posted by Dante at 5:05 PM
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