Beating and kicking Sendong’s dead

By Marlen V. Ronquillo

What is more tragic than the watery mass graves that Sendong piled up on densely-populated settlements in Mindanao and Negros Oriental with no prior warning and utmost savagery?

It is the regurgitation of NGO-speak such as “the need for stepping up disaster education,” the inadequacy of the flood warning systems, the dead’s false sense of security, etc. etc. – these bloviations coming right after Sendong and its horrific aftermath. This gross insensitivity is just like beating the dead twice over, or heaping scorn on their limp, disintegrating bodies.

The cruelest take, however, came from a government official. Leo Jasareno, identified by the papers as the chief of the Bureau of Mines and Geo-Sciences, said both Iligan City and Cagayan de Oro City had vulnerable topography.

Man, are you nuts? What city in the country does not have a vulnerable topography. The city on a high peak, Baguio City, is dying from pollution. Landslides kill people routinely, Kennon Road is a motorist’s nightmare.

In my home region of Central Luzon, the mere construction of an S and R outlet along the Gapan-Olongapo portion of the City of San Fernando, instantly transforms the strategic road into a water world after a slight-to-average downpour. This area is prime and pricey real estate very near a BMW dealership and the headquarters of a regional TV station. Yet, nothing scan save it from being a dumping area of rainwater. There is no safe city in the country, Mr. Jasareno. There is no safe place either from the savagery of natural and man-made calamities.

The utter helplessness of communities was made all too clear after drawing a map of the disaster areas, which hit hard on parts of Northern Mindanao, Lanao del Norte, Zamboanga del Norte and Negros Oriental.

This map shows a disaster area of many regions, Negros Oriental up north and Zamboanga del Norte down south .

Looking at the map and vastness of the inundated areas, one thing becomes very clear: even if the dead had all the time in the world to flee and seek refuge on high ground, the question is where. Rushing flood waters just sweep people and houses away to kingdom come, like a ten-wheeler crushing a puny box of matchsticks.

No sophisticated grounding on disaster education can save lives in that horrific context.

The hard and depressing truth is this: you are only safe in our country if no calamity visits you. This is the only relief. If you had the misfortune of being an Ormoc or a Butuan or Cabalantian in Bacolor town right after the Pinatubo eruption, you are either toast or dead meat.

Just drop the NGO-speak and those silly invocations of stepping up disaster education and climate change gibberish. It is an insult to the dead.

Of all the post-Sendong statements, the one that is blatantly ridiculous and false was the one about the victims’ having a “false sense of security.” What do they mean by this? That the dead were cavalier about their own, dear lives?

From a personal realm, I have a sense of the level of insult such statement inflicts on people from truly vulnerable communities.

I am a farmer only 32 kilometers from the crater of Mt. Pinatubo. When it erupted in June of 1991, in what was called the “Eruption of the Century,” I watched in anguish as tons of sand piled up on the roof of my poultry houses, all built on loans from the bank, and with the proceeds barely covering up operating expense plus interest payment.

I watched as the recently-built poultry houses collapsed before my eyes, both soaked with tears of frustration and partly covered with sand. I remembered what was said of the fate of the Irish people: the world always comes crushing down on you.

The earth shook, the heavens darkened, and everything had the intimations of a coming Armageddon.

But did people leave? They did not. The few who left for the fragile barrio chapels got pinned down by collapsing rooftops and we had to bury them in mass graves.

In 1991, I had the option of emigrating. I am still here in the farm of thick sand and despair. And exposed to the hollowed out crater of Pinatubo, which is now a mini-sea that could burst anytime.

People don’t have a false sense of security. They just want to stay put in places where they have been living and making a living for years, despite the dangers and the pain. Their comfort zones may be the most dangerous places on earth but they are still their comfort zones.

Of course, on an official level the government will promise heaven and earth to the affected communities, just like the commitment of the government to help us rebuild from the Pinatubo eruption. Did I get any help from government?
Zero. Nada. Nothing.

When the world comes crushing down on you, you have to get out of that hole by yourself and yourself alone. You have to own up you misfortune, then start the rebuilding process. Without the do-gooders, without the NGOs and, definitely, without government.

mvronq@yahoo.com