MANILA, Philippines?The country has seen the destructive power of calamities that strike the rich and poor alike. Those who live in upscale communities, however, believe that when disasters hit, they will be the last to be rescued.

?We are the last to be rescued because we will be the least priority of the government when disaster starts to hit us,? architect and well-established urban planner Felino Palafox Jr. told a forum attended by some 100 people in Bel-Air in Makati City, Saturday morning.

Self reliance

?The government will rescue first those in the urban poor areas. So we should know how to take care of ourselves,? Palafox said.

The forum on disaster preparedness was organized by Makati?s Cluster 1, which includes the villages of Bel-Air, Dasmariñas, Forbes, Urdaneta, Magallanes and San Lorenzo.

Palafox, a resident of Bel-Air, said his barangay was lucky to be relatively safe from earthquakes and floods since it was sitting on high ground and most houses had solid foundations.

He said, however, that villages like Forbes, Dasmariñas and Magallanes experience flooding as everyone else does in Metro Manila.

Ma. Filomena Rosales, barangay chair of Dasmariñas, said everyone learned some lesson after Tropical Storm ?Ondoy? triggered raging floodwaters that destroyed houses and killed around 200 people.

?Who is prepared for that kind of scenario? We had equipment but that kind of spillage was something beyond our control,? Rosales told the Inquirer.

She recounted that in a matter of 20 minutes on Sept. 26, 2009, cars were floating and were swept away, houses were flooded up to waist-deep.

Magallanes Village experienced the worse flooding as some families had to be evacuated from their submerged homes. Many had to be rescued by soldiers on rubber boats.

It was never known how much were lost in Makati?s affluent barangays.

Rosales said one could just imagine how much it cost if each household had two luxury cars worth millions being carried off by floodwaters.

Rosales said that although Dasmariñas had water pumps, there was nowhere to drain the floodwaters.

No escape, no exit

?Even Edsa was flooded, and the water in Maricaban creek had reached its gates. There was no way for the water to exit the village,? she said.

Maricaban creek, an eight-kilometer stream in Pasay City, is the only catchment for the Cluster 1 villages in Makati.

Rosales said since October 2009, after the ?Ondoy? floods, the barangay started cleaning the creek and had been begging for help from the national government to dredge the waterway.

She said MMDA Chair Oscar Inocentes promised to lend equipment and manpower for the dredging operations.

Agreeing to Palafox that initiatives must come from the Cluster 1 residents, Rosales said they plan to form a comprehensive disaster council composed of representatives from each village.