Typhoon Ofel left Cebu with little damage yet officials must take its passage as extra motivation for working to improve the island’s resilience to storms and their accompanying floods and landslides.
Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama showed foresight when he ordered the suspension of classes at all levels just as the weather disturbance made landfall.
Better to lose a day of school than to lose the life of even one student or school worker at a time when the weather pattern was unpredictable.
Ruben Tabura, 66, of barangay Jaclupan Talisay City was not so fortunate after taking a bath in a spring at the height of the storm. The ground near the spring moved and the old man ended up dead, buried beneath a meter of soil.
Tabura’s case shows how far local governments still have to go in educating their constituents to refrain from risky behavior in times of disaster.
Education is also the key in cases like that of a poorly anchored pumpboat carrying six persons that drifted out to sea in Daanbantayan town shortly before midnight while the typhoon was still within the country’s area of responsibility.
The crew was fortunate to restart the engine and make for land before the Coast Guard went out to look for them.
There is still room for improvement and coordination among local leaders when it comes to responding to typhoons that recognize no boundaries.
Leaders like Mayor Rama and others in Metro Cebu need to respond to the signs of the times as they wrap up their terms.
It was a time of floods, of an expose of the damage wrought by unbridled real estate development in the mountains, of the absence of a drainage master plan of Cebu City, of the invasion of easement zones as in Mahiga Creek by illegal settlers and big business establishments.
It is up to leaders at the twilight of this term to decide whether they will leave their localities unprepared for typhoons and even routine downpours in a time of disaster-wreaking climate change.