In the wake of Sendong’s deadly fury, a prominent politician posted in Facebook his sympathies for the typhoon victims of Cagayan de Oro City. I thought it was just a casual but sincere message from Albay Gove. Joey Salceda until I found out that the Bicolano leader and his people owe Cagayan de Oro residents a debt of gratitude.
In Nov. 30, 2006, Super Typhoon Reming pummelled Albay and its capital Legaspi City including Camarines Norte province. Reming’s destruction compelled then president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Arroyo to declare a state of national calamity and soon after, foreign assistance poured in for Bicolandia.
However, Albay suffered blackouts for weeks. That was on top of lack of food, safe drinking water, and the stench of mud and lahar all around. Thankfully, the CDO electric cooperative came to the Bicol region’s rescue and helped mitigate the people’s misery. The situation in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities now is exactly the way it was when Reming hit Albay five years ago.
A lot of people try to compare Sendong with Ondoy, the storm that hit Manila and other Luzon areas in Sept. 26, 2009. However, state officials tasked with helping the people of Mindanao and Negros Oriental cope with the recent typhoon’s destruction would do well to look at Albay post-Reming.
Super typhoon Reming struck the Bicol region but it was Albay province that bore the brunt of her fury. All told, 31 villages were affected, with property damage in the hundreds of millions of pesos. The destruction left government officials like then Congressman Joey Salceda dumbfounded not only because of the staggering human toll (more than 1,000) but also because lahar and mud earlier disgorged by Mount Mayon did not follow the course of the rivers but cut new paths and plunged to villages, burying people alive.
As Salceda viewed the wide swath of Reming’s destruction, he was struck by the bizarre change in Bicol’s surroundings. He talked about the “evolving massive terrain brought about by Mt. Mayon’s eruptions,” which, coupled with super typhoons, has become a distinct calamity in itself, he said.
Salceda then urged the national government to form a commission that would be tasked “to come up with plans in order to stop the further devastation of adjacent towns and cities, and determine whether any of these population centers should be abandoned.” The Bicolano politician dreaded the scenario of another twister hitting Albay because it could wipe out not just communities in coastal areas but also highly urbanized centers. I’m not sure what happened to the proposal but I think Salceda is heaving a sigh of relief that the scenario he dreaded, that is, Sendong, escaped Albay and other Bicol provinces.
Sendong’s destruction raised questions whether or not illegal logging on the coastal hillsides of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan City aggravated the disaster.
According to BBC, the United Nations Special Representative on Disaster Risk Reduction, Margareta Wahlstrom was anxious about this possibility and stressed that “more must be done to ensure early warning systems are effective in an age when climate change is intensifying the impact of typhoons”.
Many of CDO’s numerous tributaries have, over the years, developed sandbars that evolved into communities of informal settlers. Environment authorities point out the sandbars are part of the river and people should be cautioned against living in these areas because they are dangerous when heavy rains come.
Many coastal communities below the hillsides of CDO and Iligan were wiped out because of unabated illegal logging. No more trees to absorb huge rainfalls and prevent flash floods.
President Benigno Aquino III who went to Dumaguete and Cagayan de Oro cities on Tuesday said, “If we want this tragedy to be the last of its kind, we need to learn from our mistakes.” P-Noy has a point because if we consider that the Philippines is visited by around 19 tropical storms a year, each natural disaster should serve useful lessons. Yet despite the deaths that keep piling up each year and the damage to property due to natural disasters, illegal logging and mining go unabated. Complacency is also a common trait among our people. They think that because Mindanao has escaped the worst typhoons, people will not be affected. But climate change has altered the equation.
As we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, may we find comfort and strength in Psalm 46: 1-3. “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”