Dr. Prisco Nilo, head of PAGASA, says people should stop watching soap and start listening to news. As early as Thursday, he said, PAGASA was airing warnings of possible flooding and even raised storm signals the following day.
Well, the advice is sound, but not for the reasons Nilo adduces. People should really stop watching soap and start listening to news—to improve their minds. Not to get wind of the weather situation. The only thing that has become more fickle than the weather in this country is its weather forecast. People would be heeding PAGASA’s warning more if the sun did not shine on days it predicts will be stormy, thereby sending hordes of kids on holiday to Trinoma and SM North, and thereby adding to the Ayalas’ and Sys’ coffers. And if rains did not lash on this earth on days it predicts will be agreeable, thereby stranding kids at school who are hard put to find a ride home, and thereby getting their bedraggled working parents in a worse state of bedragglement waiting for them.
Didn’t PAGASA report some months ago that the rainy season had officially begun only to see some of the hottest days visit the country for weeks on end? And didn’t PAGASA say the dry season was making a comeback only to see the rains barging in? Maybe folk listened to the news and heard only the boy who cried wolf. “Weather-weather lang ’yan” doesn’t just apply to this country’s politics, it applies to its weather, too. Or its weather forecast.
It cannot help improve PAGASA’s credibility that it says things like “Ondoy” dumped more rains on this country than “Katrina,” a thing Arroyo has been citing all over the place to suggest that Metro Manilans should blame God and not she for their travails. I don’t know if that’s true, but even if it were, what of it? What caused the flooding in New Orleans was not the volume of rain, it was the fury of the tempest. Lest we forget, Katrina was a hurricane. Its force, which gathered strength as it neared New Orleans (Al Gore would point to it as a strong case for climate change, the storm’s wind velocity jumping wildly as it encountered warm air) was such that it broke the levees and sent tons of water tumbling into the place. That was what caused the floods.
There was no such gale last Saturday. Only one unrelenting downpour for a whole day, which is nothing compared to the 40 days and 40 nights of rain that poured on Luzon in July and August of 1972. For it to have caused the catastrophe it did, we do not have heaven to blame for that. We have Le Cirque to blame for that.
We have the billions that should have gone to improving Metro Manila’s drainage system and shoring up its dams but which have gone instead to feeding insatiable appetites, which is not entirely figurative, to blame for that. We have the billions that should have gone to procuring rubber boats and other rescue vessels to save lives and give relief during dire times but which have gone instead to flying public officials to watch Manny Pacquiao fight in Las Vegas to blame for that. We have the billions that should have gone to disaster preparedness but which have gone instead to preparing a lame candidate carry out a disastrous campaign to blame for that.
But PAGASA has a point when it says global warming has made the weather a lot more unpredictable, even if that very argument cannot augur well for its continued existence. The weather has become unpredictable, which is of tremendous concern for everyone of us, not just government. The best government may not spare us of its effects, however it may drastically lessen their direness.
Before Ondoy hit, I was just telling someone the weather was scaring the hell out of me. It wasn’t just that summer, or what used to be so, brought torrential downpours and the rainy season, or what used to be so too, brought infernally hot days. It was also that in one single day you would have winds blowing like crazy on a warm sunshiny day, which was perfectly all right with me, followed by lashing rain and humidity hours later, which was perfectly maddening for me. I made the mistake of leaving my umbrella in my car coming home one late afternoon to the first and going out in early evening to the second.
Weather may be fickle, but it’s never been this fickle. Certainly not so on a sustained basis. Looking back, the floods last Saturday were an accident waiting to happen. Infanta was buried in mud and rock in December 2004 from rainfall that loosened a mountain, just a week or so before a killer tsunami flattened Aceh and environs. A super storm ripped through Albay three years later turning the place into a wasteland, leaving only the roofs of houses peeping out in some places. A lot of folk have left, the ones that have remained are in constant fear at the first sign of rainfall that the volcanic ash at the foot of Mayon would turn into a putrid flood and overrun their dwelling places again. Why should we imagine that Metro Manila would be spared these devastations?
It is no small irony that Odette Alcantara died earlier last week, before the floods hit Metro Manila. She had been an ardent campaigner for the environment, warning of the dangers we courted with our continuing deafness to the cries of Nature. As Saturday abundantly showed—to residents of Metro Manila, if not to those of Infanta and Albay—that is not just the concern of people who have nothing better to do than hug trees. That is the concern of everyone. Doubtless we cannot solve global warming alone, but neither can others do so that way. Being poor is no excuse to not do our part. As Saturday showed, there is nothing better to do than to save the planet. There are worse things than being poor. Being poorer is one of them.
Being dead is another.
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source: http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090929-227398/Still-flood
