LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Images of Ondoy (And other typhoons yet to set in RP soil)

LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Images of Ondoy (And other typhoons yet to set in RP soil)

By Kristin Lim
MAKABAYAN Regional Coordinator

September 26, 2009. I woke up on that Saturday morning oblivious to the raging storm brought by Typhoon Ondoy as I was busy preparing my review material for the recap of the night’s discussion on Human Rights, which I was tasked to do on the 2nd day of the 3-day training on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.

On the venue where we were billeted, I occasionally hear the swhishing of the leaves and some banging on the rooftop possibly due to some fallen twigs or fruit seeds. The wind was unusually strong. I took it as the usual inter-tropical convergent zone (ITCZ) usually felt in an already erratic climate we are in.

On September 28, at about 4 p.m. while lounging my feet on the center table upon arriving from a tire-long trip on the bus, I switched on the television and immediately saw one of the most horrifying shot on that tragic Saturday morning-I saw close to ten people believed to be riding on GI sheets floating in the sweeping waves of murky water, one man waving and shouting incomprehensibly as his voice was drowned by the rain and shouts from people on top of the bridge. Seconds later, they’re all gone and the next scene you’ll see people shouting and running towards the opposite side of the bridge. And the next scene, you’ll see only one man holding on to something, still shouting–incomprehensibly.
October 9, 2009. Today’s a Friday, thirteen days after that “Delubyo”, two weeks to be exact, tomorrow. Images continue to linger. In fact, relief is still ongoing. Rehabilitation to more than 3 million Filipinos affected by Typhoon Ondoy is still a long way to go.

Ondoy left 797,404 families or 3.8 million people homeless, hungry, in trauma, a penny-less for the rich and tragically even-more destitute to an already impoverished poor Filipino. Casualties already reached 335 of which 288 were killed, 5 injured and 42 missing. Reportedly, damage to properties including infrastructure and agriculture has already reached P8.3 billion, according to the National Disaster Coordinating Council.

Today, Friday, another typhoon “Pepeng” continue to ravage Northern Luzon which already sank 19 of the 48 towns and cities in Pangasinan and left thousands more in evacuation centers in Baguio, Pampanga, Ilocos, and other provinces.

Images continue to flash on TV screens, on newspapers, on the internet…and on the Filipino psyche. Where do blame lie? Or simply put, who is accountable to this? Or as the others would say, who is/are to be blamed for this?

Government and opinion makers already pinpoint to the common people’s irresponsible garbage dumping, to slum houses and shanties (nee URBAN POOR DWELLERS OR SQUATTERS) obstructing floodways (as in the case of the Laguna de Bay) and rivers as the primary culprit.

Others, and yes, environmental experts would say, this is the effect of global warming.

This, I won’t argue about. Global warming has already caused havoc in every part of the globe and though this may be the first time and the worst to hit our nation today, other countries too have experienced similar if not worse incidents of calamity and destruction.

What I intend to carry on as an argument is: first, government accountability, and second, imperialist responsibility.

Time and again, activists (particularly progressive ones, not the colored-ones or the I-am-a-self-proclaimed Marxist activists) are categorized or simply put, sneered-at, for its consistent criticism to government and imperialist policies (“Palagi na lang kayong anti!” or “Mao ra gyud inyong buhat ang mamantay ug mangita og sayop!”). But the present calamity facing the nation now, points to the exact accountability and responsibility of both Arroyo and the US imperialist regime.

Government’s adherence to massive conversions of agricultural lands, forest lands or the Indigenous Peoples ancestral lands, has led to the denudation of what is the earth’s only protection against heat. The balding of our lush mountains in favor of large-scale mining, large-scale logging, massive non-agricultural crop conversions like pineapple, oil palm, tuba-tuba, banana, conversions of land to commercial complexes like malls, subdivisions, entertainment facilities, among others, has made it vulnerable to calamities as immense as Ondoy and Pepeng.

Imperialist policies, in this sense, US government policy (and not its people) has trapped the country in a state of dependency and “utang na loob” through the US-controlled World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where the Philippines is one of its cash-strapped client. In short, we Filipinos still owe WB-IMF at least P45,000 each to date, and the only way we can pay our debts (which now amounts to P4.2 trillion) is to abide by its policy of “globalization” or globalized economy-meaning, we allow them to own vast tracks of lands or lease (at the very least 50 years!) for them to “develop”, and in turn provide jobs and income to our national coffers. (But the clinch here is we are not allowed to question if the salary is too low and instead be thankful that we have a job; they can terminate us anytime they want to but we are not allowed to organize unionize or be regular employees;

We allow them untaxed entry of imported products without complain but we are not allowed to export (well, unless they like our bananas or mangoes but only to an extent that it won’t jeopardize their local mango or banana industry), and several more cases of onerous agreements only meant to make them richer and us, more poorer and dependent.

Capitalism in its ugliest sense invaded sovereign states through its blinding promises of jobs and development, at the expense of the suffering of those countries that are still underdeveloped, and yes, be the source of squander to its natural resources.

The world has become a balding mass of continents because capitalist countries mined and logged millions of hectares of mountains. The fact is, capitalist countries are the #1 consumers of waste and they’ve made the seas and lands of colonized and neo-colonized countries their junkyards.

Subliminal message

Amidst this chaos, here comes the glaring image of flying CH-47 Chinook helicopters and tall GIs in a convoy of military trucks arriving at distressed areas with an army of relief goods. It is a good humanitarian move, but something that everyone must be wary of.

The subliminal message television footages depict of 2 Chinook helicopters arriving in Brgy Talim, in Laguna de Bay one week after typhoon Ondoy hit on Sept. 26, US marines engaging in dental and medical missions, among others show the image of the “Superhero” and “Saviour” (US image makers and spindoctors are always so good at in doing in times of war and despair).

Such images muddle the fact of how America, with its might and power, is one of the biggest culprits in the destruction of the world. The US, according to its Brief, is the largest per capita emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels, which is one of the causes of global warming. It is also the only capitalist country which has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 for fear it will put “a strain on the (US) economy”, former US President George W. Bush. Under the Protocol, industrialized countries agreed to reduce their collective greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 5.2% from the level in 1990. The US was tasked to reduce its emission by 7%.

Government response

Let us not delude ourselves and pretend that the Arroyo regime is not the most servile lapdogs of the US. She is possibly the most hated president in Philippine history aside from Marcos, and even worse than Marcos actually, for her total sell-out of Philippine sovereignty: trade liberalization policies that resulted to the wanton entry of multinational companies exploiting our virgin forests (and literally our women) through mining operations and logging concessions;

It is now hilarious when one flashes back to GMAs last SONA in July whereby she boasts (well, she has always been boastful in order to hide her failures) of setting up of billions of pesos of state-of-the-art technology and infrastructure that will prepare the country from storms, earthquakes and the like. “Weather tracking facilities are now instituted and flood control facilities are underway” to sum up her SONA pronouncements.

So where are all these multi-billion peso projects now? In her hands or in someone else’s pocket in time for the 2010 elections? We could only guess.

Government’s response was snail-paced as ever. The image of Malacañang officials giving out pandesal and ice water to typhoon victims trying to enter the Palace was as hilarious as it can be amid the picture of despair, pain and loss reverberating all over the country and the rest of the world while watching the devastation that Ondoy (and now Pepeng) left our country.

Accomodating some families in Malacañang reeks with bad taste of propanda. Hundreds of thousands of families are still housed in evacuation centers and are now threatened to be thrown out on the streets through government’s plan to ban them from going back to the places where they once lived-in riverbanks, canals and underpass. Target relocation sites are San Mateo and Rodriguez towns in Rizal province and San Miguel in Bulacan. Funny (again) but these areas were also hit by heavy floods.
Let us not forget government’s penchant for “re-packing” what is already a packed relief goods coming from international donors. The millions of dollars now being channeled to government as donations for the relief and rehabilitation is a rich source for funding come the 2010 elections.

But the image of millions of dollars worth of blankets, clothes and other basic needs donated from the government of Jordan is a good material to demand from government if it has already dispatched these relief goods to the victims.

Meantime, the images of destruction continue to linger. And the certainty of uncertainties that such calamities will bring forth the Filipino people will continue as the nation still expects more typhoons to hit the archipelago. (This article was written two weeks after typhoon Ondoy struck Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon and typhoon Pepeng was at the height of creating havoc in Northern Luzon.
Makabayan is a coalition of patriotic nationalist parties composed of sectoral and local personalities which means Makabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan).