It’s not easy to live in a country hit by typhoons on a regular basis every year. It’s not easy to see our fellow Filipinos brought to their knees as competing tragedies of the pandemic and Typhoon Odette hit them at the end of 2021.
Traveling to typhoon-hit areas reminds me of what many experts and advocates continue to advocate for in terms of disaster management. Here are some of the challenges we faced when we conducted relief operations in the Province.
Lack of information. We do not have an online and comprehensive database of people to contact when disaster hits.
Days after Typhoon Odette hit us, many of us entered typhoon-hit communities with no local contacts, no clear idea of how many people needed help, no information on how to contact local officials.
We badly need all these information to be online, preferably on a website where the information doesn’t get buried in thousands of moving posts.
There should also be Plan B, C, to Z when communication lines are down.
What about the affected local government officials? I understand that government employees are duty-bound to respond to disasters but I don’t understand why a few people lambast what they perceive as shortcomings in the response of these employees.
I went to places where people complained about the seeming absence of their barangay officials, only to discover that these same people had also lost their homes and even family members.
We are a nation known for bayanihan. I hope people won’t forget compassion and understanding, too.
Antiquated systems in packing and distributing relief goods. For a country hit by various types of disasters every year, we still have not invested in infrastructure and machines that can speed up the packing and distribution of relief goods.
Our heroes at the Philippine Navy traveled in a small ship not built to carry relief goods, and the journey from Manila to Negros Oriental took almost half a month, inclusive of very quick stopovers in other affected areas.
We need to invest in disaster-prevention and disaster response.
The science is clear: with the disastrous effects of climate change, disasters will multiply. Storms will be stronger. Surges more destructive. A typhoon can eradicate not just homes but livelihoods.
We need to learn and unlearn so many things as a nation. We have no other choice — if we want to survive.
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