KISSAH AND DAWAT: Drowning in floods and funds

BONGAO, Tawi-Tawi (MindaNews / 31 July)—As parts of Mindanao and Luzon were ravaged by typhoons, we in the southernmost province experienced only gloomy weather and intermittent rain. When heavy waves became more prominent, public sea transports were advised to cancel their trips.

If there is one thing that unites us across Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao, it is the year-round challenge of natural calamities, from storms to typhoons to earthquakes. On one hand, calamities are truly devastating to lives and properties. We mourn those who fell victim. We pity those who were displaced. We honor those who helped, volunteered, and rescued as heroes. Empathic messages flood social media. We even have a way of turning these disasters into memes, in a way that only Pinoys can find humor in. Pinoy nga naman! However, it is enough to accept that whatever has happened and will come, no matter how disastrous, we will overcome with our resilience and sense of humor.

On the other hand, we wonder what happened to the billions of pesos spent on flood control or mitigation projects. The President’s pronouncement of the billions worth of flood control projects completed under his watch is still fresh in our ears, yet we see communities in knee to waist-deep floods everywhere. Is it enough to accept that those projects were themselves destroyed by floods? Is there no popular clamor for public accountability?

As many of our communities are drowning in the flood, so is our government drowning in flood control funds. Senator Grace Poe has filed a resolution seeking to inquire into these funds. Accordingly, since 2022, around P556 billion has been allocated to fund flood control programs. In 2023, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved a $303-million loan to reduce flood and climate risks and protect people and livelihoods in three major river basins in the Philippines[1]. For fiscal year 2024, the government would be spending at least P1 billion per day. “P556 billion is too substantial a sum of money to permit anything less than optimal efficiency and effectiveness in our government programs, yet the current state of flood management in the country clearly demonstrates a dire need for a meticulous reassessment of where our hard-earned taxpayers’ money goes,” she said[2].

Despite the institutionalization of disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) policies across all government levels, it seems our situation is worse than ever, with wider destruction and more pervasive effects than before. Is this a case of bureaucratic mess? Are our mitigation strategies—from the national offices down to the barangays—working? What happened to our early warning systems? What missing elements that need to be addressed to make our comprehensive DRRM plans effective: disaster prevention and mitigation, disaster preparedness, disaster response, and disaster rehabilitation and recovery? Is our collective investment in annual planning, capacity-building, and 24/7 DRRM operations across all levels, agencies, and structures inadequate to mitigate the yearly onslaught? What will become of us if we are hit by the big ones?

Or is this also, in part, due to the hardheadedness of many of us in abiding by DRRM rules and regulations? How difficult is it to access the Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards (NOAH) data (noah.up.edu.ph) and zoom in on our neighborhood to understand our household or business vulnerability? How many areas have been declared vulnerable to flooding, storm surges, and landslides, yet we continue to dwell or hold business in these red zones? Are we, population-wise, so numerous that we have nowhere else to go?

Or is it because global warming and climate change are really getting worse, making any band-aid solution futile? If we are this affected by regular typhoons, what about the big ones that our scientists and researchers have been warning us about? We used to think that we in Mindanao were the lucky ones, being located “below the wind.” Now, in addition to the usual flooding and landslides due to prolonged heavy rains, we are also in the path of typhoons that usually ravage the central and northern parts of our country. Therefore, we need to ensure that the principle of proactivity is applied and used in preparation for when another set of natural calamities strikes. How is proactivity manifested across our DRRM plans and preparations? What is the status of its mainstreaming—integration of DRRM and climate change adaptation into local development plans, policies, and budgets?

While we cannot prevent natural calamities, it is in their mitigation that we must make a significant impact, as clichéd as it may sound. Mere compliance in developing the DRRM plan will not save us; this mindset will simply put many of us in jeopardy. The law emphasizes the importance of community involvement in DRRM activities, ensuring that plans and measures are grounded in local realities and capacities. Therefore, developing the plan should not be left solely to government personnel, it requires mainstreaming and community-based approach as mandated by Republic Act No. 10121 or the “Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010.”

We need to differentiate between nominal and substantive citizen engagement. Without meaningful citizen involvement, along with transparency, efficiency, effectiveness, and public accountability, we are doomed to repeat our ill-preparedness and mistakes. This will result in more lives and properties being lost and destroyed as natural calamities become more frequent and disastrous. The situation is further aggravated by questionable flood control infrastructure programs that fail to effectively mitigate floods, landslides, and storms.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Noor Saada is a Tausug of mixed ancestry—born in Jolo, Sulu, grew up in Tawi-Tawi, studied in Zamboanga and worked in Davao, Makati and Cotabato. He is a development worker and peace advocate, former Assistant Regional Secretary of the Department of Education in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, currently working as an independent consultant and is a member of an insider-mediation group that aims to promote intra-Moro dialogue.)

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[1] https://www.adb.org/news/303-million-adb-loan-boost-flood-resilience-philippines-river-basins

[2] https://legacy.senate.gov.ph/press_release/2024/0729_poe1.asp#:~:text=For%20the%20current%20administration%20alone,projects%20over%20the%20past%20decade.