Typhoons are frequent visitors to the Philippines. And the national government must have been prepared on what to do just in case something terrible happens. But from the way it looks, the country’s preparedness is always sacrificed because politics always gets in the way of projects that are deemed necessary to at least mitigate the harsh impacts of typhoons.
The National Disaster Coordinating Council has always trumpeting its disaster preparedness. But everytime, a typhoon comes overflooding and landslides occur, some are just in the outlying areas of Metro Manila, while others occur in the countryside. It seems all these plans are only in the blueprint but nothing much concrete had been fulfilled. For many years, flooding in the streets is a common sickness that until now remains uncorrected. The Metro Manila Development Authority has been doing its job to clean up the water tributaries so that the flow of water will be unhampered. But what happens is that many of our countrymen, particularly those in the squatter areas, continue to ignore environmentally accepted regulations. For as long as there are squatters, heaps of garbage will be thrown into the creeks and rivers thus clogging the passage of water, which has become a good breeding ground for mosquitoes.
Perhaps, it is only timely that the government will think ahead when it comes to disaster preparedness before it is too late to act. Let us not wait that the media will feast on the government’s mistakes.