The Long View: Inheritance battle before Supreme Court

The Long View
Inheritance battle before Supreme Court
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:04:00 10/29/2009

Senator Benigno Aquino III, together with Mayor Jesse Robredo, filed two days ago a petition before the Supreme Court—to nullify the law creating a new congressional district in Camarines Sur. The basis of their objection is a simple one: the enacted new district fails to meet the basic population requirement for House representation.

During the deliberations in Congress, Sen. Joker Arroyo and Rep. Luis Villafuerte both argued that the law was valid because the Constitution stipulates a population requirement only for city districts, but does not specify non-city districts.

So it seems there are two interpretations of the Constitution duking it out, which suggests a valid case has been filed; but is it a case that ought to have arisen at all?

The Constitution provides that every province, no matter how small or tiny the population, will always have at least one congressman; furthermore, every city with a population of at least 250,000 people, gets at least one congressman.

This means every legislative district should cover a population of 250,000. This is an innovation in the present Constitution. In 2010 we will have a population of 93.7 million people and if you adopt the 250k to 1 ratio, we should have 375 congressmen in 2010! However, the Constitution also says the lower house should have a maximum of 250 members, until and unless Congress passes a law changing that number.

If Congress decides to create new districts, then it has to do so bearing in mind the following parameters: every province is entitled to representation, each district should meet a population requirement, and the total composition of the House has to fit within the maximum number of seats provided by law.

What this means is that when Congress embarks on redistricting, it has to do so on the basis of a uniform and progressive ratio. This is what’s called proportional representation. The Constitution actually tells Congress to reapportion legislative districts within three years of the release of census results.

We have had four censuses since 1987: in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2007. Another one’s due to take place in 2010. That means Congress ought to have redistricted the country in 1993, 1998, 2003 and 2007. But it has only done so piecemeal: which means each enacted new district could conceivably represent a violation of the right to representation of everyone else; or by means of turning established constitutional principles upside down, something Villafuerte is pretty good at.

If all politics is local, then a local need will result in a way being found to satisfy that need.

Some months ago, seeing that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has a brother-in-law as a congressman, and that her eldest son is a congressman in Pampanga, and her younger son represents a district in Camarines Sur, I thought it would be interesting to look at the latter province’s four congressional districts.

The first district has a population of 417,304 and is represented by the President’s youngest son, Diosdado “Dato” Arroyo, currently on his first term.

The second district comprises Naga City and has 474,899 people and is represented by the President’s loyal ally, Luis Villafuerte, currently on his second term.

The third district has a population of 372,548 and is represented by former Speaker Arnulfo P. Fuentebella, currently on his second term.

The fourth district, comprising Iriga City with 429,070 people, is represented by Felix R. Alfelor Jr., currently on his third term.

Villafuerte’s House Bill 4264 (successfully) sought to split the existing first district into two districts. But as you may have noticed, at 417,304 residents, the first district is shy of the number required for it to be entitled to two representatives (one for every 250,000 residents).

Simple, said the Villafuerte bill. Take away some barangays from, say, Villafuerte’s own second district, and add them to the territory of the first district. Politics is addition, after all.

But then why not take away from the first and add to the second, splitting the latter then?

Well, it’s because Villafuerte’s happy with his district, while there’s a specific political problem in the first district: a potential spoiler to the continued political happiness of the President’s son.

That spoiler is the President’s current budget secretary, Rolando Andaya Jr. He was on his third term as the first district’s representative when he joined the Cabinet, leaving his seat in Congress empty, and perfect for the President’s son to warm it. In 2010, Andaya would be out of the Cabinet, and eligible to run for congressman again.

That would pit him, a three-termer son of a three-termer, against Dato, a first termer whose mother, theoretically, would either be out of office or a mere representative for Pampanga in 2010.

So why not find a Ramos-like win-win solution? Split the district, give one to Andaya and the other to Dato. Everybody happy! The new district was approved in the House on June 11, 2008. In the Senate, it was approved on Sept. 27, 2009. Among those being eyed as presidential or vice presidential contenders, only Senators Noynoy Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan voted against it; Mar Roxas came in late; Loren Legarda was absent; Chiz Escudero, Dick Gordon, and Manny Villar voted for it.

The result was Republic Act 9716, creating a new second district from the old first district (retaining the latter’s designation as such); and renaming the existing second, third and fourth districts the third, fourth and fifth districts, respectively, while retaining their current size and territory.

At stake is the political inheritance of Diosdado Arroyo.

The Long View: In defense of Esperanza Cabral

The Long View

In defense of Esperanza Cabral

By Manuel L. Quezon III

Philippine Daily Inquirer

First Posted 00:49:00 10/26/2009

Is criticism tantamount to subversion, and is asking questions treason? Opinion ends up deeply divided on these matters during times of national emergency or crisis. Two examples will suffice.

In the frantic days immediately after Typhoon “Ondoy,” there were instances in which Richard Gordon was criticized because Red Cross volunteers were kept waiting for what turned out to be a photo opportunity that never took place, because Gordon didn’t turn up. Gordon is in a particularly sensitive position when it comes to these things, because of the nonpartisan nature of the Red Cross, and his partisan identity as both a senator and presidential aspirant, an unprecedented situation for a chairman of the PNRC.

But in typical Gordon fashion he faced the situation squarely enough, explaining the photo-op scheme wasn’t his, and furthermore, vowing no such thing would ever happen again. While some of his admirers continue to have ruffled feathers over criticism having been ventured in the first place, the chairman himself did the right thing: there is no such thing as lèse-majesté when it comes to the elected head of a humanitarian organization who also happens to be an elected official—and who has to finely balance the at times contradictory duties of the offices he holds.

When Typhoon “Pepeng” struck, the President ordered the Mansion House in Baguio opened to the public as an emergency shelter. Three busloads of students from Taguig were allowed to park in the premises that night, although the students weren’t allowed to alight from their buses. The next morning, when the President went to Baguio, the buses were asked to leave. Everyone in Baguio City knew what happened, and how a humanitarian order by the President ended up thwarted by her flunkies. This only goes to show that even the best-intentioned policies can be ruined by crude or contradictory implementation.

The twin tragedies of Ondoy and Pepeng brought out the best in so many people, but also exposed the shortcomings of the public and private sector when it comes to providing relief and rehabilitation assistance. The biggest shortcoming of all, in terms of officialdom, is that it enjoys very little public trust. As government tried to manage the outpouring of support from people overseas for typhoon victims here at home, quite a bit of nudging had to take place for officials to realize that they had to go the extra mile in terms of explaining existing regulations and to offer reassurances that aid would go where it was intended.

Secretary Esperanza Cabral of the DSWD has been, on the whole, patient and committed to the utmost transparency and accountability in the handling of donations, while taking pains to explain what her department is doing—and how it pains the rank and file to operate under a climate of mistrust born, not of her current handling of the twin crises, but of the mishandling of previous ones.

In recent days Cabral’s been upset over a blogger asking some pretty pointed questions based on her experience as a volunteer in the DSWD warehouse in Pasay City. The issue, shorn of all the emotionalism that’s come to surround it, is simply this: Is the DSWD moving fast enough in dispatching donated relief goods, considering the continuing need of so many citizens for relief?

The blunt answer is, the DSWD could be moving faster, and it took the public outcry caused by the blog for the government to start sounding a call for more volunteers, which sidesteps the question of whether it’s a wise or even necessary policy to rely on volunteers for a line agency to fulfill its functions. The DSWD has done a lot, as it is; so the public interest lies in figuring out how it could do better—which it can’t do, without the public participating by means of criticism and helping in problem-solving.

What struck me immediately about the controversial blog entry was that the problems the public has come to associate with officialdom and relief were notably absent. There was no pilfering, no looting, no diversion of relief to line official pockets. This, in itself, is a colossal achievement: the warehouses are secure, items are tidily kept and they presumably end up where they should. Another thing that struck me was that the secretary has proven true to her pledge to be transparent and accountable about donations: they are publicly available, on line, listing monetary donations, and donations in kind, and the disbursement of relief goods.

Some things could stand improvement, in terms of the record-keeping of the DSWD, for example in terms of donations being recorded in one manner, but recorded, in the disbursements, in another: canned goods recorded by the box upon receipt, but sent out in batches of actual cans, for example. This makes for a confusing, not to mention untidy, inventory system that leaves too many gray areas when the time comes to reconcile inventory received and dispatched. Or take items having to stay in the pipeline until a monetary value can be assigned: either a more comprehensive database of values can be created, or donors urged to provide this information.

When the whole issue was at its most ferocious, some people expressed uneasiness about the repercussions of questioning the DSWD and its methods. This is an unwarranted fear; the DSWD has come to realize it has to explain its policies and methods to the public; and it has armed the public with facts that confirm its assertions. On the whole it has been a healthy exercise in accountability that should reassure foreign donors and the citizenry that, ultimately, Cabral serves.

* * *

THE column included the following note: READERS are invited to visit http://blogs.inquirer.net/current/ to see relevant readings on the issue of the DSWD warehouse, to see eyewitness accounts, the department’s accounting of donations and how the system can be improved.

* * *

HERE is what was published on Inquirer Current (since many readers seem to miss clicking the link above):

Yesterday, the Inquirer’s editorial, Turtle-paced relief, looked at the controversy caused by a blog entry that questioned the speed at which donated relief goods made it out the door and into the hands of intended aid recipients. The editorial gave DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral’s response to the questions raised in the blog entry, but also pointed out that the DSWD’s own records showed a senator, congressmen, and cabinet members intervened in the release of relief goods, contradicting Secretary Cabral’s own policy of making relief and rehabilitation “politico-proof.”

The editorial also mentioned the 2006 South Leyte Mudslide, which had relief efforts marred by officials plundering relief goods and sending often inedible goods to the victims (Stella Arnaldo in her blog, points out the deterioration of the DSWD and corruption in its ranks dates back to the Marcos administration; the Guinsaugon tragedy took place under the current administration’s watch and partially explains the climate of hostility or suspicion that surrounds government relief).

By way of Cabral’s pointing out that the DSWD and government has to attend not just to relief, but rehabilitation, the problems involved, in the context of the 2006 tragedy, are illustrated by this detailed report, CDRC reports on Guinsaugon relief, circa 2007. There is great frustration over the seemingly-insurmountable problems our country faces, and how even people who want to help, sometimes find their efforts met with official hostility, or indifference, or even when embraced, ends up appearing to be too little too late: I tackled this in a previous entry, Republic of Sisyphus.

Today, my column, In defense of Esperanza Cabral, looks at the same issue: it essentially distills the findings I discussed at length in my blog entry, Flooded with relief. There were two incidents I mentioned by way of illustrating an ongoing debate on whether it is healthy or productive to question how officials go about their duties in times of emergency. The first concerns PNRC Chairman Richard Gordon and incidents such as the one chronicled in Urban Hermitage and in the blog of Faith Salazar, the response of the PNRC Chairman was to vow that no such things would happen again. Absolutely the correct response, considering an unusual burden Gordon has to bear, as the elected Chairman of a neutral humanitarian organization, while being, at the same time, an elected senator and presidential aspirant: balancing all these is something no previous chairman has had to contend with.

The second concerns the public relations snafu at the Mansion House in Baguio City, see Random Thoughts.

For his part, Paul Farol in Asian Correspondent believes raising questions can be counterproductive to relief efforts. Tonyo Cruz also in Asia Correspondent takes a contrary position.

For readers who want to come to grips with the issue, here are some relevant readings.

The whole controversy was sparked by a blog entry titled Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo? (A special report from a volunteer) on October 21 (a timeline of the issue can be found in Bayanihan Online). There was a Philippine News story on October 23. The DSWD Secretary responded with a statement, as follows: Statement of Dr. Esperanza Cabral on the issue of relief goods in the DSWD Warehouse. In a response to the Secretary, Beting Dolor of the Philippine News boils down the issue and public opinion on the matter:

In times like these, I expect the DSWD to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The DSWD says there are not enough volunteers. I disagree. There are tens of thousands of Filipinos willing to help. The DSWD should have gone to the schools to ask for volunteers. There are countless employees in the private sector willing to help. The DSWD could have asked the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police to help. I expect the department to take a more pro-active rather than a reactive stance. I expect the secretary to DEMAND that everyone help out. Lest we forget, human lives are at stake.

The value of the public fuss lies in the Secretary responding to the issues raised, by asking for help, which she did by contacting Gang Badoy, who has taken it upon herself to muster volunteers to help the DSWD (the only inaccuracy in the Secretary’s statement is that they are operating around-the-clock, which is not true in terms of the DSWD Relief Operations Center in Pasay: both in terms of the duty hours Cabral recommended to Badoy, 3-11 PM, which if true, meant that when we went we should have seen things winding down, or if round-the-clock as Cabral said, then certainly there would have been more activity than the sleeping guard and fluffy white dog we encountered: and that, incidentally, was the purpose of checking by going to Church Street that night). Another problem is that the relief effort, even if government-sponsored, relies on volunteer manpower and the DSWD did not make calls for volunteers until it was faced with questions raised by the blogger. One lingering problem, too, is that the DSWD, when presented with volunteers, has told some that they’re not needed; but if volunteers are persistent and say they want to help with UNICEF, then they’re allowed in -to the same compound. Please take time to read Been there done that DSWD! in Deviliscious’s Blog, which clarifies the issues quite thoroughly, and deserves being quoted at length:

There are 5 (if my memory doesn’t fail me this time) huge warehouses. 1 warehouse housed the goods from UNICEF. The rest housed rice and other food stuff. The UNICEF goods are packed as starter packs for those families who have been relocated due to the floods. A starter pack consists of cooking pot stuffed with towels, bath soap, laundry detergent, water jug stuffed with 4 blankets, 2 plastic mats. These are then picked up by trucks and supposed to be delivered to the relocation centers. The rest of the warehouses pack food and snack packs, as far as I know because I did not actually pack one. Distribution is centralized through DSWD.

Those are the facts as I’ve seen them.

The blog that started it all, after checking the posted pics and what I actually saw, referred to the UNICEF warehouse. Is there corruption? I don’t think there is. At least not at the warehouse packing stages. Ensha and the volunteers seem intent only on the job at hand. (Bless you guys!)Security seems strict and I see no signs of pilferage. I’m not sure what happens after the goods leave the warehouse. I just hope they get to their supposed destinations. Someone needs to check on that.

Is there intentional hoarding? I don’t think there is either.

Goods are just moving slow. I posit 2 reasons:

1. There are not enough volunteers. Ms. Fabian says that on weekdays they only get around 40 volunteers. When I came there, there were not more than 15 working on a Saturday even when I posted on my FB page with my 1800 “FB friends”, several FB groups totaling around 400 members, twittered it, and SMSed to 20 buddies. 15/2000 is not a good ratio. Gang, I hope you are more successful. No volunteers.

2. Limits set by the management. When I was told that DSWD is no longer accepting volunteers for the weekend because there were already a lot of volunteers from UPS. I don’t have the exact count but I saw several hundreds. However, after 2 hours of work, I noticed that the other warehouses were empty. I strongly think the 5 huge warehouses could accomodate and harness at least 1000 per warehouse. When we were repacking at Red Cross Rizal in a 40sqm room, we had 600 volunteers at some points and managed to release 1000-2000 packs per mission and we ran several missions per day. The DSWD warehouses should be able to improve their output. They could run 24/7 on continous shifts when volunteers and managers (from DSWD, UNICEF, or volunteers) running the packing lines. In business, we call this a good problem. It is a scale problem.

My recommendations:

1. Train more packing line managers from staff and volunteers.
2. Run the lines as a 24/7 operation with your trained line managers.
3. Make the schedules public. Use social media, the internet, radio, whatever. (I know of some who volunteered but returned home when they were told they need no more volunteers. If I, myself, [emphasis mine] did not ask for UNICEF, the peeps at the DSWD office wouldn’t have volunteered the info. Clearly, we have communication problem here.)
4. Get more volunteers.

Those are my recommendations to the people in charge of the warehouses.

And there’s also this informative video by the same blogger, which was uploaded to YouTube:

Now early on it became clear that the climate of suspicion concerning the DSWD and all officials engaged in relief, is the sad history of previous relief efforts being marred by controversy. Combined with the wounded amor propio of DSWD officials and employees, you have a case of official denial combined with hostility aimed at all criticism and reaching for the bureaucratic equivalent of a gun to silence dissent (talk of the DSWD mulling filing libel suits against the offending blogger).

The thing is that the DSWD from its Secretary on down, can only be accused of working at government speed, when the public demands working at the double -a clash of cultures.

On the other hand, as I pointed out in my column, the DSWD can take pride in it opening up its activities to greater scrutiny than perhaps ever before, which is both good and bad. Good in that it proves that even if it’s doing its work more slowly (the DSWD could’ve easily said, but at least more methodically) than the public might desire, it can claim it’s being a good steward of the relief goods entrusted to it.

Consider the records that represent full disclosure the department’s prepared and put on line.

The DSWD has published its list of Cash Donations Received online. It has also put up, online, its List of Donations Received, and the NROC (National Relief Operations Center) Summary of Releases.These are official documents, the public record, and as I mentioned in my column, fully in keeping with Secretary Cabral’s pledge to be transparent and accountable for the aid and assistance given the Philippine government by public and private donors, here and abroad.

There are many ways to look at these documents to see what information they provide. Here are some that I attempted.

For example, you can look at the documents to see whether, in the face of the Secretary’s pledge to make the distribution of donated relief goods “politico-proof,” whether her pledge was carried out to the letter:

DSWD Disbursements to Officials

Based on the information above, provided by the DSWD itself, it’s clear that much as Secretary Cabral wanted to keep relief efforts “politico-proof,” goods were released to administration officials: the Vice-President, three cabinet members (Bello, Reyes, and Gonzales), a senator (Revilla, member of the ruling coalition), two congressmen related to cabinet officials (Reps. Puno and Ermita-Buhain), and other congressmen affiliated with, or considered friendly to, the administration: friendlies include Reps. Abayon, Arquiza and Pizarro who are party-list representatives that accompanied the President on her USA trip, while Antonino and Crisologo (listed on his biodata as NP but on the roster of Lakas-Kampi), are partymates of the President.This is a detail of public interest not just because of the Secretary’s pledge, but because even if one assumes good faith on the part of the officials concerned, the impression that relief was released by means of the intervention of these officials -all of whom are affiliated with the administration- makes suspicions of partisanship unavoidable because reasonable.

Or, you can take a look and see which goods were sent to the Relief Operations Center established in the Presidential Palace:

DSWD Disbursements to Malacanan

This is of public interest, because early on during the Ondoy relief efforts, the Palace center found itself with no goods to repack; it had to ask for relief goods from the Ateneo de Manila University’s relief operations.This is a detail of public interest because it raises the question of whether this was the most efficient allocation of relief goods, considering relief goods were also being donated directly to the Palace for volunteers to repack and distribute.Here’s another way to look at the public records provided by the DSWD.I decided to collate the donations made by the “big” donors, specifically international organizations such as the World Food Program and Unicef, foreign governments and related agencies such as the governments and embassies of Spain, France, Jordan, the Peace Corps, and large domestic corporations such as San Miguel Corporation and the Coca-Cola company:

Institutional Donations to DSWD

Recall that one of the causes for the furor over the blog entry on the DSWD warehouse, was frustration with what was perceived to be the less-than-optimal speed at which foreign-donated goods were being distributed; there were even questions raised, by some, concerning whether or not foreign-donated goods were being set aside and only domestically-produced items sent out.What do the DSWD’s own documents tell us, is what I wanted to know.In the first place, the question of foreign-donated goods being set aside raised a red flag, in the context of previous disasters, when officials kept foreign goodies for themselves and sent domestic products (sometimes past their shelf life) on to actual disaster victims.

There have also been many cases, formally and informally reported, of relief goods being sold on the black market for the private gain of officials and their friends. On the other hand, no one -not the original blogger who raised questions about the DSWD warehouse, or people who have gone there since- said any actual pilfering was going on.

Would the records bear this out? Because, as I said in my column, it’s a remarkable achievement in itself, for the DSWD warehouse to be secure, the donated goods intact, and no cases of pilfering reported.

The records, on the whole, to my mind, bears out the assertion of the Secretary of the DSWD that they are taking care of donations, and that they’re getting out the warehouses in relief packs. However, it’s extremely difficult to prove this conclusively, simply because of one thing: the manner in which inventory was received, is not the same as the manner in which inventory is reported as having been dispatched.

Consider this effort, which I began and which some other online volunteers participated in:

Institutional Donations to DSWD

It proved extremely difficult to match many items. The official list of donations received often listed inventory in a manner that was not retained in the list of inventory released. This is an inventory record-keeping problem that can be solved by adopting methods used in big grocery chains, and maintaining a consistent reporting system throughout, from the arrival of goods, to their being loaded on the trucks.Basically, it would seem one method was used to keep one list, and another to report what was sent out, with no attempt being made to establish common parameters to make reconciling the two lists easy.The result is that there appears to be more rice sent out than was released, and a discrepancy in the number of blankets received and sent out. Even figuring out whether as many 1.5 liter bottles of Coca-Cola were sent out as were received, or the same number of boxes of bananas donated were sent out, and the time that elapsed between receiving donations and dispatching them, is difficult.

Another effort, also by an online volunteer, this time focused on summarizing the items released, based on the items themselves and their reported unit cost:

DSWD Released Donations

A subsequent effort was this one, undertaken by an online volunteer, who tried to approach the problem by sorting the goods by kind and then reconciling the numbers received and number sent out: Releases Donations Thru NROC-1

There’s a need for additional data, too: for example, are family food packs composed of items taken from various sets of donations? If so, since the food packs are, presumably, standard sets, they’d represent standard deductions of inventory from other pooled items, so it should be possible to quickly calculate and report where inventory ended up, even if piecemeal.In addition, I have permission from the creator of the following three documents to share with you that volunteer’s efforts to sort the data provided by the DSWD to see what patterns might emerge.As the volunteer explained it, what was attempted was to generate new report views using MySQL database. The data from donation list and released summaries of the NROC were downloaded . Three report views were generated. Original DSWD Data for NROC

The first (above) is ORIGINAL DSWD DATA FOR NROC: a compilation of 2 dataset (donations and released items via NROC). This is basically the set of data used for the next two report views. Caveat: this needs to be double-checked against published data of DSWD just to be sure there aren’t any inadvertent discrepancies.

Second:

Dswd Data for Nroc – Sorted by Date/ In, Out

DSWD DATA FOR NROC – SORTED BY DATE,INOUT (above) in which the combined dataset by DATE and according to flow of donation (Is it a donation entry or is it a release entry) was sorted. This gives a general idea of the flow of activity regarding donations via NROC. First items out the door were door were blankets, clothing, baby supplies, food packs, noodles, water, water jugs, toiletries, etc.While donated pretty early on, medicines continue to remain in storage.As the volunteer who prepared this document pointed out,

Unilab donated as early as Sept. 29 various medicines. Donations of medicine and medicine supplies from Kingdom of Jordan came in by Oct. 06. Donations of medicines from Phap Cares came in by Oct. 06 and Oct. 08. Donations of medicine from PNOC came in by Oct 10. There is one instance of UNICEF food & non food family kit (3,000 Pesos/pack) and several UNICEF Pabaon Packs (3,000 Pesos/pack) released on several dates. They may or may not contain medicines at all. One odd thing here is if these packs are from the UNICEF warehouse or not. I think someone who is familiar with medicines needs to review the list. It’s important to know if the medicines donated are of non-prescription type.

Finally:

Dswd Data for Nroc – Sorted by Item Name, Date In/Out

DSWD DATA FOR NROC – SORTED BY ITEM NAME, DATE, IN OUT (above) in which what was sorted was the combined dataset by ITEM and then the flow of goods in chronological order. This is only partially useful since the item names caused some discrepancies in the display.All these unofficial, partial, volunteer, efforts are simply attempts to look closely at the information government provides, and to see whether the documents bear out government’s assertions.On the whole, the documents are step in the right direction. Their usefulness, however, is compromised by some flaws in methodology that are obvious from the moment one tries to sort the data and compare lists. These flaws can be rectified, and should be rectified, because they prevent the records from serving their true purpose, which is to provide a clear, transparent, accountable reference system for the goods entrusted to government for the benefit of the people.

Personally, I don’t see how the government or its officials was hurt by questions being raised. In the few days since the whole issue came to the fore, consider what was achieved:

1. The DSWD finally seized the opportunity to call for volunteers, and the private sector responded.

2. The DSWD was able to inform the public, foreign and domestic, about how it goes about utilizing foreign and domestic relief donations.

3. The public was accorded ample opportunity to scrutinize the records of the DSWD, which it has been providing all along, and furthermore, the public was able to propose improvements to the manner in which donations are recorded as having been received, and then dispatched.

The sound and fury along the way is a small price for the good that was achieved, and more so, if the DSWD decided to implement and adopt some of the recommendations made by a public every bit as concerned as the DSWD is, to bring relief to typhoon victims. It would be a terrible mistake, simply from a public-relations perspective, for the DSWD to attempt to file lawsuits against the blogger who dared to ask questions: it would only fortify, in the public’s mind, that the DSWD was caught going about its business in a lackadaisical manner, and only tried to look busy afterwards.

Postscript:

As if things didn’t need to be more confusing, there is another, official, list of donations received by the DSWD, aside from the other one linked to, above! I am reproducing it and related documents here, simply for completeness and in case interested readers want to examine and compare the documents.

Here is the one I linked to, above, saved online as a Scribd document, and which was the basis of the various exercises shown above:

DSWD in-Kind Donations Received

And here is the other one, brought to my attention only after I’d written my column, and which was not used in the various exercises shown above:DWSD NROC Donations Received as of 01 Oct 2009 0500H

And here is the official list of disbursements (releases),also saved as a Scribd document:DSWD NROC Summary of Releases

And, just for archiving purposes, a copy of the DSWD list of monetary donations received:DSWD Statement on Cash Donations as of 23 Oct 2009 1645H

Concerning this list, the comments of a volunteer might be of interest to readers:

I like the way DSWD tallied the monetary donations.

They even included if the monetary donation was provided with an Official Receipt or not. The thing is, while that was good, something else was missing. There is no indication at all if any of these funds have been used already.

Currently, all people are focused on the actual goods for repacking and distribution but there is a large pie of the entire donations thatis not yet being moved it seem. That is, if we take the lack activity when it comes to monetary donations. I personally think, not only the slow movement of the relief goods should be given importance or highlight. A question should be raised if the fund was already used.

Look at this figure based on DSWD’s documents:

DOLLAR CASH DONATION (as of 23 Oct 2009) ———- US$ 212,508.57equivalent to 9,562,885.65 pesos (when using conservative Forex rate$1 = 45pesos)

PESOS CASH DONATION (as of 23 Oct 2009) ———- PhP103,799,354.06

TOTAL CASH DONATION IN PESOS ——————— 113,362,239.71 pesos

DONATIONS VIA NROC (as of 24 Oct 2009) —- PhP 59,426,418.75 (thereare entries w/o monetary values yet)

DONATIONS VIA CO (as of 16 Oct 2009) —- (no total figures were provided but there is a monetized value which I did not compute anymore) TRUCKING SERVICE (as of 01 Oct 2009) — (no monetary figure was provided at all)

TOTAL DONATION (CASH + GOODS + SERVICES) ———————————172,788,658.46 pesos

RELEASED DONATIONS (as of 24 Oct 2009) ——- Php 45,263,281.28 (thereare entries w/o monetary values yet)

% OF RELEASED vs IN-KIND DONATIONS = 76.1669% was only released = 45,263,281.28/59,426,418.75

% OF RELEASED vs TOTAL DONATIONS = 39.928% was only released = 45,263,281.28/113,362,239.71

I suddenly remember visiting one website before who raised funds online.

The site owner/blogger even received a cash donation personally. She disclosed online how the money was spent. Can’t remember exact details but I remember the blogger mentioned that sheshared a portion of the cash to a person/group who were in need of funds for their relief effort. Then In addition to that, the shopping expenditures (for the relief goods her own group planned to distribute) was even provided and any cash leftover was even mentioned.

Flooded with relief (updated)

Making the rounds online is an entry titled Aanhin pa ang damo kung patay na ang kabayo? (A special report from a volunteer) originally published in ellaganda.com. When I first posted this entry, the site had vanished, but the entry had been preserved in Google’s cache; now the site is back up. Over at the Multiply site of Jenny Epperson you can find the entry reproduced as well.

The entry does not allege that relief goods donated by foreign governments are being pilfered, or have been stolen, or kept in conditions that are destroying the goods. The entry bewails the fact that the DSWD lacks manpower to repack the goods and distribute them. The entry also pointed out imported relief goods remained unopened while volunteers focused on repacking domestically-produced relief goods.

The entry allows the reproduction of photos in the entry so here they are.

First, of goods in the DSWD warehouse:

(unopened, and unused foreign bedding)

(domestically-produced banig, or sleeping mats, which were repacked in DSWD relief packs)

Second, what goes into a standard DSWD relief pack:

Into an aluminum cooking pot goes ten cans of sardines and nine bars of soap (all domestic products);

Plus a towel and a pack of sanitary napkins.

Three rolls of bedding and a blue water jug.

Followed by two banig (sleeping mats).

The whole thing then sewn shut.

According to the entry, in the prescribed manner, the volunteers, in one afternoon, were able to pack 150 sacks of relief goods, which were then dispatched.

The relief good consisted entirely of domestic goods, while imported relief goods remained untouched. As the goods packed were dispatched, more relief goods arrived at the DSWD warehouse.

But this is a far cry from the assumption many seem to be making, that something criminal has actually taken place. Surveying public opinion on Twitter, people seem upset on the following grounds:

1. The lack of a public call for volunteers.

2. Questions over what happens to relief goods, once the emergency passes.

Media’s being urged to swoop down on the DSWD Warehouse at Chapel Road, Pasay City (at the back of the Air Transportation Office, towards NAIA II) and see what’s actually going on.

The only thing the DSWD can be held to account for, at this point, is tardiness when it comes to distributing aid from overseas. Over on Twitter, there’s a claim that the Palace will be holding a relief-repacking event tomorrow, featuring United Nations workers and volunteers. So the only other criticism might be of politicking by means of turning the repacking of relief goods into a photo-op for the Palace.

4:09 PM The best I have been able to find out from my own sources is the following SMS:

Sir according to Dir. Reynes of PMS that there’s an information about the foreign donations and volunteers but not yet confirm. They will have a meeting today with Usec. Oca regarding the matter.

4:58 PM Update is that 150 United Nations people will be going to the Palace at 7 AM tomorrow, to observe relief operations taking place, and possibly help in repacking relief goods already stored at the ground floor of Kalayaan Hall.

The Palace had a problem in that public mistrust of officialdom led to a lukewarm, at best, response to its appeals for donations from the public. At one point, the relief effort going on at the Ateneo de Manila University had to give relief goods to the Palace so that something could be given the volunteers who showed up (and officials and government workers drafted into relief operations) something to do.

The entry also said the following exchange took place between Philippine News and the DSWD Secretary on October 21:

Kahapon, tinanong ng Philippine News si DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral:

Editor of Philippine News: Why are the relief goods in DSWD warehouses not moving?

DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral: Wala kasing volunteers.

This short interview was done over the phone. Philippine News wanted to hear her side pero ayaw niyang makipag-usap sa press. After four tries, pinasabi na lang niya ang maikling sagot na ito sa secretary niya – “Walang volunteers”.

The entry says a cover story in Philippine News is in the works, so let’s see if it appears. Here is the Philippine News story, October 23: Donated goods sitting in DSWD warehouse.

What the DSWD itself has said (reported on October 19) is this, in DSWD vows ‘politico-proof’ distribution of relief goods:

In a radio interview, DSWD Secretary Esperanza Cabral said her department will handle the food items from the UN, while its personnel will keep watch over the distribution process.

“Hindi po [mga pulitiko ang magre-repack] ng relief goods. Kami ang humahawak at nandodoon ang mga tauhan namin habang dini-distribute ang mga iyon (We will not allow politicos to repack the UN-donated goods. These will go through us and our personnel will be there while the goods are distributed),” Cabral said on dzBB radio.

An initial 100-ton food shipment from the UN World Food Program (WFP) arrived in the country Sunday for victims of cyclones “Ondoy” (Ketsana) and typhoon “Pepeng” (Parma). [See story on UN flash appeal for relief assistance]

WFP country director Stephen Anderson said another 100 tons of biscuits is scheduled to arrive on Oct. 24.

Cabral noted the UN also gave rice for the cyclone victims. But she said that while the UN-donated rice will be included in food packs for victims, it will be placed with other goods in containers with the UN logo.

“May bigas na binigay ang UN sa atin at ito [ay] isasama sa food pack na iba. Nakalagay ang kanilang tatak sa rice pack (The UN gave some rice and we will include it in our food packs. The packs with UN donations will have the UN logos),” she said.

Believe it or not? It depends on where you are in the current zeitgeist.

Postscript, 2 AM Saturday (updated further 2 PM)

In Blog about ‘rotting’ relief goods at DSWD warehouse sparks cyberspace, the DSWD Secretary answered a non-question:

According to her, it is impossible for relief goods to be rotting inside the warehouse as they do not store perishable items. She said the warehouse — a complex of five buildings — only has rice, clothes, non-food items and canned goods.

“Walang nabubulok. Stocks ‘yun na hindi perishable (Nothing is rotting. Those stocks are non-perishable), ” she said.

Cabral also explained the photos circulated from the blog showing towering boxes of relief goods, saying the stockpile in the warehouse stemmed from the outpouring of donations from various individuals and groups at the height of Ondoy and Pepeng.

Cabral said the relief goods would be used in case Typhoon Ramil, which has been forecast to hit Luzon on Sunday, causes another disaster.

She also said they cannot release the relief goods right away since they need to check on the items and make an inventory.

“This takes two to three hours to do,” she said.

“Over the past 24 days, we have already given out 500,000 family food packs, 300,000 clothing packs and several non-food items like mosquito nets, blankets and water containers. We are now distributing 10,000 packs a day,” Cabral added.

The relief goods, per the entry, were figuratively rotting in the warehouse, not actually rotting; and if you notice the entry never mentioned that there were people busily taking down inventory about the shipments; and the volunteer blogged that all they were able to pack amounted to 150 bags of goods. The blogger, ella, says so herself in her response to the manner in which the networks carried the story:

I know what non-perishable goods are. You see, doon tuloy na-focus ang denial ng DSWD, hindi sa santambak na goods. Kakaiba.

On to the next point. Marami akong nabasang comments, posts at kung ano-ano pa, doubting the veracity of my “allegations”. I was there in the warehouse. I presented the pictures. I think I’ve done my part as a concerned citizen.

To the DSWD officials and Ms. Cabral:

The burden of proof is on you. The donors expect that everything they sent be distributed immediately to the intended recipients and not be stored in some warehouse. As government officials, it is your social responsibility to the people.

The article ends with Sec. Cabral denying -or not remembering, anyway- she talked to Philippine News. Here’s a comment posted on blog ni ella by Beting Dolor, October 23, 10:51 PM:

My name is Beting Dolor and I am a columnist and contributing editor for US-based Philippine News. I have been with this paper since 2002.

I was the one who called DSWD four times to try and get their side. I was told that Sec. Cabral was 1) at a meeting, 2) interviewing applicants, 3) in the comfort room, and 4) about to leave for Pampanga.

It was her office secretary who relayed to me her message that there are not enough volunteers.

I wrote my piece for Philippine News because I was disturbed by the relative inaction of the department. The Philippines is under a state of calamity. As such, action is needed now, not tomorrow.

The hundreds of thousands of displaced Filipinos need all the help they can get. They cannot wait.

In times like these, I expect the DSWD to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The DSWD says there are not enough volunteers. I disagree. There are tens of thousands of Filipinos willing to help. The DSWD should have gone to the schools to ask for volunteers. There are countless employees in the private sector willing to help. The DSWD could have asked the Armed Forces and the Philippine National Police to help.

I expect the department to take a more pro-active rather than a reactive stance. I expect the secretary to DEMAND that everyone help out. Lest we forget, human lives are at stake.

The victims are dying by the score everyday. It’s in the news.

As for the rotting of the goods, we all know that it is not only food that can rot. So, too, can clothes, canned goods, biscuits, blankets and everything else that can be found in the DSWD warehouses.

Time is of the essence. The food that the DSWD hands out today will be forgotten tomorrow. Believe it or not, the victims still need to eat every day. Three square meals, if possible.

Finally, the hoarding of the relief goods for future calamities does not make sense. We have just undergone the worst calamity in 40 years. Does the DSWD plan to keep those goods for the next four decades?

Distribute them now, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month.

Agreed, Madame Cabral?

This is “Madame” Cabral’s official statement on the matter, see Statement of Dr. Esperanza Cabral on the issue of relief goods in the DSWD Warehouse:

When typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng hit the country, we received and are continuing to receive donations. Our warehouses are indeed full, inspite of the fact that we have distributed 500,000 food packs and 200,000 clothing packs as well as thousands of sacks of rice, blankets, beddings, and items of personal hygiene in the past almost 4 weeks. That is the reason why when asked if we still have enough goods, my constant reply is yes, so far we do, thanks to the many kind-hearted individuals and organizations as well as countries who responded and are still responding to the plight of the typhoon victims.

There are no rotting relief goods in our warehouses as we do not keep perishables there and the relief goods that are there, save for the donated old clothes are quite new since they have been either recently purchased by us or have been just donated.

Our goods are repacked by volunteers who are there because they want to help. But they are volunteers and report when they have time to help us. Sometimes there are two hundred of them and sometimes there are only a dozen. However many or few they are, we appreciate their presence and their assistance. Weekdays are usually quiet but on Saturdays and Sundays, the students, along with others who work Monday to Friday, including our own employees, are there.

Our staff at the warehouse work round the clock even now, making sure that the requests for relief goods are met in a timely manner. They work hard, they work quietly and they work humbly and I feel bad that they have been subjected to public vilification that they do not deserve.

Around the clock!?

Around 11 PM some friends and I went to the DSWD warehouse, just to take a look-see.

The warehouse is located near the NAIA Centennial Terminal (DSWD National Resource Operation Center, Chapel Road, Pasay City, behind the Air Transport Office).

According to Gang Badoy, DSWD Sec. Cabral had agreed to allow her to organize shifts of volunteers to sort and pack relief goods at the DSWD warehouse from Monday to Friday, 3-11 PM.

So at the time we showed up, I was expecting to see things winding down, the last trucks loading or in the process of departing, or people filing home after a tiring day’s work.

There was a white fluffy dog that was awake, and a guard that was asleep; through the gate I could spot part of the open-sided warehouse in the last picture above. Otherwise, everything was sleepy and quiet.

The guard, when he finally woke up, mumbled something about our being at the wrong gate. We asked whether volunteers were coming in, and he said yes, and when asked what time, replied, all the time, but when pressed further said only until 11. He said a few days previously, 200 students from the Philippine Maritime Institute had shown up; and more recently, 50 volunteers had shown up.

Asked how much got packed and shipped out, he declined to guess. And then said if we wanted to know details about volunteering, to go to the other gate.

Here’s how one of my companions related the conversation that night to blogger Bury Me in This Dress:

friend#1: Gusto namin mag volunteer, san kami pupunta?
guard: Ah, punta kayo sa kabilang gate pero wala ng volunteers ngayon, umalis na at kakaalis lang ng 3 truck dala ang relief goods papuntang region 1 and 2.
friend#2: Marami bang volunteers pumunta dito kanina?
guard: Oo, madami.
friend#2: Ano sila? Puro estudyante?
guard: Oo, mga 200 sila.
friend#2: Ano? Mga elementary students ba to? (feigning ignorance at the kind of volunteers that shows up)
guard: Hindi, mga college students to, mga taga-PMI.
friend#2: Anong oras ba nagsisimula at natatapos?
guard: Sa umaga, tapos natatapos kahit anong oras sa gabi.
friend#2: Kahit anong oras? So bakit sabi mo tapos na ngayon at di na pwede mag volunteer?
guard: Nagsisimula minsan sa umaga tapos hanggang alas-9 or 10 or hanggang 11pm.
friend#2: So san nga kami pupunta kung pwede pala hanggang 11pm?
guard: punta kayo sa kabilang gate

The other gate was a big one covered with rust-colored sheet iron and after knocking on it another guard in a sando said that three military trucks full of goods bound for Regions 1 and 2 had left earlier.

But he kept asking why we were asking questions, if we were doing “coverage,” and that he should get clearance first; he said volunteers could show up at 8 AM, even on weekends, but seemed less certain about what time things were supposed to wind down.

Here’s how one of my companions related the conversation to blogger Bury Me in This Dress:

friend#1: Dito kami tinuro ng guard sa kabilang gate para mag volunteer sa relief operations.
guard: Ha? Anong balak nyong gawin? San kayong grupo?
friend#1: Sa RockEd kame. Gusto namin sana makita ang warehouse para sa volunteer work.
guard: Ah balik na lang kayo bukas, kse sarado na ang warehouse.
friend#1: Bakit di pwede tingnan, sabi sa balita na pwede kami mag volunteer kaya nga nandito kami eh tapos sasabihin mo sarado?
guard: Sarado na kse nag lo loading ngayon dun ng relief goods.
friend#1: Eh bakit sinabi mo sarado kung may loading pala nangyayari dun.
guard: Ano ba balak nyo? Di pwede dito ng coverage. Di pwede tumingin lang, kailangan mag volunteer.
friend#1: Sige, pero gusto namin tingnan para lam namin kung pano magbigay ng instructions sa ibang volunteers pero since ayaw mo lang na tumingin kme, mag vovolunteer na din kami ngayon na.
guard: Magbubuhat kayo ng carton?
friend#1: Hindi, magre repack kami.
guard: Bakit gusto nyo lang tingnan?
friend#1: Sinabi na nga namin mag vo volunteer na nga kami kse ayaw mo na tumingin lang kami eh. Lam mo ba na wala kaming problema na makita ang relief goods sa red cross at sa abs-cbn kahit late na ng gabi? Sikreto ba ang location ng sardinas?
guard: (already pissed off) Bakit paulit-ulit ang sinasabi mo?
friend#1: Bakit nga? Anong problema talga? Talgang sikreto nga ang taguan ng sardinas?
guard: akin na ID mo.
friend#1: eto.
guard: (went away for a few minutes and returned with the ID)
friend#1: So ano?
guard: Balik na lang kayo bukas ng umaga.
friend#1: Anong oras ba talga relief ops dito? Meron ba kanina?
guard: Oo meron, mga 50 lang na estudyante.
friend#2: 50 lang? Pano sila makaka repack ng marami para sa 3 trucks?
guard: (irked again, maybe he was irked of how stupid his answers were.) Bukas na lang kayo bumalik kse walang advise sa amin sa ganitong oras ng pag volunteer.
friend#1: Eh bakit sabi sa amin ng isang guard minsan hanggang 11pm or hanggang gabi talga ang repacking? Anong oras ba talga nagsisimula at natatapos?
guard: basta bukas sa umaga tapos hanggang hapon o gabi.
friend#1: anong pangalan mo?
guard: bukas na lang.
friend#1: Bakit ayaw mo ibigay pangalan mo? Di ba sa gobyerno ka nagtratrabaho? Kinuha mo ID ko, alam mo pangalan ko tapos ayaw mo ibigay pangalan mo sa akin?
guard: (hesitated and stalled) Jay Lou Sadaya
friend#1: Jay Lou Sadaya? Jay Lou Sadaya?
guard: (nodding)
friend#2: sige babalik kami bukas.

One thing’s certain: the place is not a beehive of activity, even in what is an ongoing emergency with areas still needing relief.

If there hadn’t been the blog entry and pictures that provoked so much indignation, the public would never have been alerted to the -apparently- great and pressing need of the DSWD for “volunteers,” something the state media and all media could have amplified if a call had been made.

I asked a senior Red Cross official what their protocols are concerning foreign aid shipments.

My Red Cross source said upon receipt of inventory, the packages are opened, to check their contents, make a preliminary allocation of the contents based on the Red Cross’ protocols for sending relief (there are different stages of relief: the first round, for survival, and subsequent rounds for more sustained relief), the contents are therefore unpacked and resorted and repacked in combination with other items, and then dispatched as requests from various chapters and localities come in.No effort is made to “conserve” one kind of donation in favor of using up another.

An editor I talked to reminded me of past practices in the Visayas some years back when government officials set aside imported canned food, and sent domestic items only as relief, in some cases the domestic items sent were past their shelf life.

At this point I think it’s safe to say that the DSWD was caught:

1. Reacting slowly to an ongoing emergency;

2. Trying to blame the public -the “lack of volunteers”- for not getting its (the DSWD’s) job done (within hours of the story gaining wide readership on the Internet, guess who Tweets an appeal for volunteers);

3. Trying to reassure the public by means of press releases saying they’re “working around the clock” when the only thing awake tonight was a fluffy white dog.

Gang Badoy on her Multiply site lists ways you can help to do the DSWD’s job for it.

Here is the DSWD’s official list of donations received, last updated September 27, 2009. Note that the donations from the Kingdom of Jordan and the US Peace Corps, for example, are classified as “for monetization,” which I guess means they cannot be dispatched until their value has been calculated.

Here is the DSWD’s official list of donations sent out, last updated October 22, 2009.

You’ll notice a lot was sent to the Palace (recall early on it had to ask for relief goods from Ateneo de Manila University to keep operations going):

DSWD Disbursements to Malacanan

For affected personnel of the government or released to specific officials (Secretary Bello, Reps. Puno, Ermita-Buhain, Abayon, Antonino, Arquiza, Crisologo, Pizarro, and Senator Revilla, a certain Atty. Maramba and the Vice-President:

DSWD Disbursements to Officials

And here is a list of institutional donations, including international agencies, foreign governments, and large corporations; the items should be easily cross-referenced with the official list of disbursements; a spot check of some, e.g. bananas and Coca-Cola, suggests most items should be trackable based on donations received and goods sent out.

Institutional Donations to DSWD

You can help correlate the DSWD’s list of items received, with items sent out, by helping with this Google Doc. By correlating the two, we can figure out: What items have been sent out, and to where, and which items have not.

Update Sunday 12:09 AM

From Deviliscious’ Blog, this entry which ties all of the above together, worth quoting extensively:

I just want to share my experience at the DSWD to shed some light into the DSWD controversy because I had enough of the online speculation and just wanted to go there and see it for myself and volunteer to help.

When I got there I looked for Miss Fabian who’s managing the warehouse for DSWD. She informed me that they no longer need volunteers for the weekend because they have too many. So I asked about UNICEF and they exclaimed that I could help there. UNICEF needs volunteers.

So I met with Ensha of UNICEF, some volunteers from Don Bosco and Jordan, a volunteer from Boston. We were about 15. After about an hour, my fellow volunteers from Red Cross, including Geraldine Repollo, who’s managing Rizal chapter, followed and relieved the students from Don Bosco. We were still about 15.

There are 5 (if my memory doesn’t fail me this time) huge warehouses. 1 warehouse housed the goods from UNICEF. The rest housed rice and other food stuff. The UNICEF goods are packed as starter packs for those families who have been relocated due to the floods. A starter pack consists of cooking pot stuffed with towels, bath soap, laundry detergent, water jug stuffed with 4 blankets, 2 plastic mats. These are then picked up by trucks and supposed to be delivered to the relocation centers. The rest of the warehouses pack food and snack packs, as far as I know because I did not actually pack one. Distribution is centralized through DSWD.

Those are the facts as I’ve seen them.

The blog that started it all, after checking the posted pics and what I actually saw, referred to the UNICEF warehouse. Is there corruption? I don’t think there is. At least not at the warehouse packing stages. Ensha and the volunteers seem intent only on the job at hand. (Bless you guys!)Security seems strict and I see no signs of pilferage. I’m not sure what happens after the goods leave the warehouse. I just hope they get to their supposed destinations. Someone needs to check on that.

Is there intentional hoarding? I don’t think there is either.

Goods are just moving slow. I posit 2 reasons:

1. There are not enough volunteers. Ms. Fabian says that on weekdays they only get around 40 volunteers. When I came there, there were not more than 15 working on a Saturday even when I posted on my FB page with my 1800 “FB friends”, several FB groups totaling around 400 members, twittered it, and SMSed to 20 buddies. 15/2000 is not a good ratio. Gang, I hope you are more successful. No volunteers.

2. Limits set by the management. When I was told that DSWD is no longer accepting volunteers for the weekend because there were already a lot of volunteers from UPS. I don’t have the exact count but I saw several hundreds. However, after 2 hours of work, I noticed that the other warehouses were empty. I strongly think the 5 huge warehouses could accomodate and harness at least 1000 per warehouse. When we were repacking at Red Cross Rizal in a 40sqm room, we had 600 volunteers at some points and managed to release 1000-2000 packs per mission and we ran several missions per day. The DSWD warehouses should be able to improve their output. They could run 24/7 on continous shifts when volunteers and managers (from DSWD, UNICEF, or volunteers) running the packing lines. In business, we call this a good problem. It is a scale problem.

My recommendations:

1. Train more packing line managers from staff and volunteers.
2. Run the lines as a 24/7 operation with your trained line managers.
3. Make the schedules public. Use social media, the internet, radio, whatever. (I know of some who volunteered but returned home when they were told they need no more volunteers. If I, myself, [emphasis mine] did not ask for UNICEF, the peeps at the DSWD office wouldn’t have volunteered the info. Clearly, we have communication problem here.)
4. Get more volunteers.

Those are my recommendations to the people in charge of the warehouses.

From the above then, it’s safe to conclude the following:

1. There isn’t, hasn’t been, and there’s no reason to suspect, will be, pilfering/stealing of relief goods. Most accounts have been careful to avoid any such insinuations; if you go through the documents, as I’ve begun to do, it’s safe to say the government is trying its best to be transparent about what’s received and sent out. One problem is the (necessary) bureaucratic nature of things (having to assign a monetary value to donated goods, for example); another is receiving goods in one kind of quantity (per box) and doling them out in another (per piece): unless, from the very start, a standard unit is assigned from receipt to disbursement, it makes for a messy inventory system. Messy inventory systems do not inspire public confidence, but it’s not proof of anything other than a sloppy system.

2. The DSWD, dependent on volunteers, lacks them. A public fuss led to appeals for volunteers. Sometimes, even those willing to help can’t help because of scheduling/management snafus. This brings up a policy question: the President has the power to compel the attendance of the necessary manpower or hire necessary manpower to get the job done.

3. The goods are moving slowly. This is the main cause of the public fuss.

Final update Sunday 1:31PM

Blogger Delivilicious posts YouTube video of his visit:

The Long View: Hi’s and hello’s in three stages

The Long View
Hi’s and hello’s in three stages
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:35:00 10/22/2009

According to the Comelec calendar, the schedule for holding political conventions to nominate official party candidates for all elective positions in the 2010 elections started yesterday, Oct. 21, and ends on Nov. 19. The United Opposition was the first to hold a convention yesterday, proclaiming Joseph Estrada and Jejomar Binay as the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the UNO coalition.

The ruling PaLaKa coalition has (tentatively) set its convention for Nov. 11 or 12. Party officials insist that the fourth national executive meeting held at Edsa Shangri-La Plaza in Mandaluyong City last Sept. 16 was not a convention but “merely” a consensus-building exercise. Yesterday Sun-Star Online Tweeted that “Environment Secretary Lito Atienza remains loyal to Lakas-Kampi,” which conclusively settles the real affiliation of Atienza and friends and the nature of his so-called Liberal rump: nothing more than a divisive ruse to further the President’s agenda.

It’s less clear whether the Nacionalista Party or the Liberal Party will hold formal conventions with actual balloting, or whether their respective leadership councils will simply ratify the candidacies of Manuel Villar Jr. (and whoever ends up as his running mate) and the Aquino-Roxas ticket, respectively. Senators Francis Escudero and Loren Legarda are expected to announce their candidacies as the Nationalist People’s Coalition tandem for 2010 by the first week of November, before the Senate resumes its sessions on the 9th, and some party-list organizations affiliated with the NDF are expected to endorse the tandem by Nov. 3, which suggests they changed their minds about supporting Villar’s candidacy.

Party conventions, ideally, are supposed to decide two things: who the party’s official candidates will be, and then, the revision of the party’s platform with an eye to the coming campaign. PaLaKa, the NPC and the LP have existing platforms, which represent the common creed of those affiliated with those parties. These parties can simply decide to campaign under their existing platform, or revise it, during their convention, to present to the electorate.

This is also the period in which coalitions are formalized, and when they decide on common candidates and a common platform. If the candidates of a particular party, with an existing platform, are adopted as the candidates of a coalition, then chances are that a new platform will be hammered out to harmonize the existing party platform of the candidates with other issues brought to the table by the coalition partners.

Once party conventions have taken place, the filing of certificates of candidacy for all elective positions follows, from Nov. 20 to 30. The Comelec, via Resolution 8646, shortened the period for the filling of COCs to 11 days (in 2007, the filing period was twice as long).

Theoretically, then, parties have barely a month (the convention period) and candidates slightly over a week (the filing period, when parties, theoretically, can cobble together coalitions) to decide who their standard bearers will and what alliances they will forge. This is actually a very short period either for campaigning, which is required to secure nomination, or for reflection, which is necessary for drafting and ratifying a party platform.

But of course the campaigning has been going on, and the drafting of platforms is (hopefully) taking place. The era in which parties were composed of life-long, card-carrying members who sent delegates who had to be courted by candidates, is long past.

The closing acts of the traditional conventions took place in 1965, when the Nacionalista Party convention went to Ferdinand Marcos due to Imelda Marcos’ charm offensive to court the support of the Lopez bloc, and because Emmanuel Pelaez refused to bribe his way to victory, and in 1969, when there were allegations that the Liberals chose Sergio Osmeña Jr. as their candidate because Diosdado Macapagal wanted a candidate who’d lose (so he could make a comeback), and supposedly because of the “Marcos Liberals,” who maneuvered to select the weakest possible candidate versus the incumbent president.

Having subverted the integrity, such as it was, of the two leading parties, Marcos then devoted himself to systematically destroying them during martial law. He tried to restore the prewar one-party system, and much as we have a theoretical multi-party system, his legacy continues, except that the shelf life of every administration party is only as long as the term of the incumbent who created it.

What we have then is a political period in which certain events—conventions and the filing of candidacies—serve as ritual events, sign posts of the coming election period that formally begins on Jan. 10, 2010. The national campaign period for candidates for the presidency and vice presidency, the Senate and party list, begins on Feb. 9. For candidates for House seats and provincial, city and municipal officials it begins on March 26, 2010. All end on May 8, 2010.

Up to now, candidates have been introducing themselves, individually, to the public (who, after all, are also party members and whose preferences influence the party elders). In November, they will be introducing themselves as standard-bearers of parties with platforms to the same public to form coalitions (that form on the basis of public opinion). In February, they will be competing with the other candidates to convince voters like you and me, individually, that they, their platforms, and coalition partners, deserve our vote.

The Long View: Brazen

The Long View
Brazen
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:03:00 10/19/2009

As I write this, it’s been four hours since news broke of an attempted armed robbery in Greenbelt 5 Mall. I ended up trying to keep track of events on Twitter, supplemented by news on ANC and the reports of INQUIRER.net. The first tweet I noticed came in around noon, with someone asking if there was an ongoing terror attack in Makati. Within minutes, all sorts of details started coming in. At first, it seemed that shots were being fired in Greenbelt 3, then soon after, it became clear from multiple tweets that it was actually at Greenbelt 5, and that the target was the Rolex store.

There were reports of people running around in a panic, on the second level and also in the basement, as shoppers fled the scene. Other shoppers hid in changing rooms and even restaurant kitchens; some shoppers within the premises of shops, were kept inside the shops until the coast was clear. Some tweets relayed information that shoppers were evacuated, five at a time, as situation normalized.

There were all sorts of confusing tweets from people relaying text messages from friends and family: up to 20 gunmen involved; up to four casualties, including a security guard and a saleslady. All proved, later on, to be inaccurate. But early on, too, came reports the gunmen were in uniform, though some specified PNP uniforms and others Bomb Squad uniforms; there was even mention of alleged CCTV video of the robbers, including a woman. Eventually, reports settled on seven gunmen involved in the robbery.

Via dzMM’s Teleradyo, came news that Greenbelt 5’s basement had been cordoned off—suspects had possibly commandeered a vehicle (two getaway vehicles, some tweets said). There was a lot of subsequent chatter speculating on whether it made sense to target a Rolex store, since it would (supposedly) be difficult to sell the watches on the black market because of serial numbers on the watches; and whether robbery was the true motive.

One Twitterer brought up the Alvin Flores gang, saying the robbers seemed to have followed a similar modus operandi. Even the rumor that the robbers included a female member, according to the Twitterer, seemed to make sense, “Alvin Flores Group has lady member too,” adding that the gang was the prime suspect in robbing Harrison Plaza, Union Bank, St. Scholastica’s, the NFA and LRT.

It took about two hours for the media to finally confirm there was a casualty, and the number of robber-gunmen involved.

One Twitterer who’d been at Greenbelt 5 said she was on the second floor, “around 12ish,” when she saw people running on the first floor of the mall; then they heard two shots, a pause, then louder shots. She and her companions fled to Greenbelt 3, but said it was closed down, so they went to Landmark.

Blogger Rico Mossesgeld’s father called Ayala Security around 3 p.m. and got this account: “Greenbelt 5, seven armed men told mall security that they were investigating a bomb threat, so they were let in. They go to Washington store, smash open the glass. Mayor Tinga’s entourage was nearby; one of Freddie’s bodyguards shot one of the robbers. Not sure if shot robber is dead; other six fled immediately.” Video shown on ANC showed a body sprawled on the threshold of the store, in a black uniform; Inquirer.net’s story confirmed that Mayor Tinga’s bodyguards brought down one of the robbers.

According to Makati Councilor Jun Binay, only one bystander was hurt by a stray bullet; that’s a minor miracle in itself.

The Sunday noontime robbery led to expressions of anger against the robbers, with quite a few people demanding harsher punishment for criminals. Quite a few people pointed out the troubling implications of so many reports suggesting the way the robbers got close to their target was because they used official-looking uniforms: which led, in turn, to people wondering whether rogue cops or military men might be involved, which would make it difficult (if not impossible) for the authorities to investigate their own.

The public has been jittery ever since Typhoon “Ondoy” resulted in the biggest breakdown in public authority in the metropolis since World War II: aside from stories of looting during and after the typhoon, you often hear people discussing an upswing in stories of robberies, big and small.

Blogger Cocoy Danao, writing in Filipino Voices, says it all. In his entry on the Sunday robbery attempt, he wrote: “At the end of the day, does it really matter whether the intent was pure robbery, or a way to instill fear in society? Does it matter whether the intent was to loot to fund a political campaign? The fact remains that the next government still must focus on Institutional Reform. That the eye on the ball must be to make our police more trustworthy, less corrupt and our justice system impeccable. That’s the only way to fight crime, graft and corruption. We fight it by having courage. We fight it by having a justice system everyone can agree is fair and reliable. We fight it with a police force we can depend on. That’s what we citizens must demand of our future leaders. That’s our eye on the ball. That’s how we face our fear.”

But the fear is there. It’s too early to tell if the objective of the robber-gunmen was simply the loot in the watch store, or whether choosing such a high-profile target, on a payday weekend, at that, is supposed to carry with it other benefits, of a political and economic kind. What people are going to be doing, is trying to fit in the Sunday robbery with previous robberies, the public expectation that the election season will lead to an upsurge in violent robberies and extortion as various groups try to “raise funds” by unorthodox means. And that these crimes can play into the hands, politically, of various political groups.

Blog Action Day: Postmortems

Today’s Blog Action Day, with the theme of Climate Change. Even as this BBC article What happened to global warming? asks whether a period of global warming is giving way to a period of global cooling. The thing is, the question justifies a Climate Correspondent for the news organization, so climate change can’t be ignored.

Here at home, the question is more of overcrowding, the plundering of natural resources, the willy-nilly sprawl of human habitations heedless of topography or the interaction between rain, vegetation, and the soils, and so forth. The interaction has been ignored; and so, the result is we have what we have -natural calamities compounded by man-made ones.

In the face of two typhoons that devastated much of Luzon, the following story, recounted by a member of the President’s cabinet, is illuminating:

Two Sundays ago Cecile Alvarez and I had a riotous chat over dzRH radio with Press Secretary Cerge Remonde on his reminiscences about the deluge. He noted that the President’s party had no time for rest after arriving from Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The day before the flood, Arroyo had flown to Iloilo to inaugurate the 15,000th branch of the Botika ng Barangay. That Saturday, she went out of the Palace at mid-morning aboard a six-by-six truck bound for Camp Aguinaldo but couldn’t get beyond Legarda Street. Remonde recalled that Arroyo checked on his location (he had reached Aguinaldo by then). As she later related, she tried to help direct traffic but the water quickly swelled up to her chest and she had to be plucked out on a rubber boat. Her security escorts tried to dissuade her from proceeding, but she argued that if Remonde got to Aguinaldo, there was no reason she couldn’t. Arroyo and a handful of security men were taken to the nearest LRT station and upon reaching Cubao she was fetched by an army truck.

Remonde recalled that while presiding at the NDCC conference, Arroyo began calling Metro Manila mayors to locate evacuation sites, and the decision was made to put up advance command posts in badly hit areas. He said that when the presidential party was in Marikina around 11 p.m., no one had eaten. Being a diabetic, he felt faint but a doctor told him not to fall on her as her medicine bag was incomplete. He was finally able to call Rep. Nikki Teodoro, the defense secretary’s wife, and tell her of their hunger. She managed to send some food over to NDCC at 2 p.m.

But it’s not as if presidents and the people haven’t been down this road before.

“The Great Flood of November, 1943,” a watercolor by Trudl Zipper. reminds us that humanity cannot bend nature to its will, but rather, nature follows its own inexorable laws. Veteran newsman Ping Galang in After relief come the tough decisions about the future reminds us our localities and many Filipinos have gone through devastating floods and storms before: but now that there are so very many more of us, and so very much of our habitat has been changed by infrastructure, as to compound the effects of natural weather phenomena.

My entry for Blog Action Day has been gestating for some time, first as an Ondoy-specific postmortem, and now, including Pepeng’s aftermath. As an urban resident my necessary interests are in harmonizing the advantages or familiarity of urban living with the need to rethink many former assumptions about the vulnerability of urban residents of all classes, to natural phenomena. This brings up the tangled nature of the problem, in which science, politics, institutions (formal and informal), culture, all ended up so intertwined as to make most people feel utterly helpless.

I. Eyewitnesses to Disaster and Relief

Some noteworthy blog entries concerning the Great Floods of 2009 remind us of how natural forces can sweep away human settlements.

For Typhoon Ondoy, see Gibbs Cadiz , Billycoy’s Blasted Brain Blogs , House of Squared 3.0 , Soapbox , Real Life Excerpts , Mrs. Supergrift’s harrowing account of Provident Village, Lakwatsero , Juan Country, The Journal of The Jester-in-Exile , tonyocruz, and Guttervomit. Also, journalist Ramil Digal Gulle. The Independent has its story on the heroic death of Muelmar Luz Magallanes. The Inquirer editorials Apocalyptic , People’s mite, and Herculean Task speak of the institutional responses that required private sector back-ups.

Photos in Ondoy Tumblr and Boston Globe’s The Big Picture. Videos in Dave Lucas.

For Typhoon Pepeng, see “Pangaasi Yo, Apo” in The Marocharim Experiment and Baguio Insider.

Photos in Northern Dispatch Weekly, Pinoy Weeky, Monsters and Critics, Boto Mo Ipatrol Mo photos, Jeremias’ Site, and in Sa Likod ng Tabing.

II. The Online Bayanihan Phenomenon

There’s a dilemma represented by the Internet allowing people to agonize over the environment while servers consume electricity and require vast airconditioned storage spaces to function.

ComputerWorld Philippines summarizes developments that took place in Disaster Management 2.0. See also The Lede Blog, and In Asia. The most notable -and probably, precedent-setting- responses ranged from Rescue InfoHub Central to Ondoy Manila. One particularly noteworthy effort that shows signs of being maintained on a semipermanent basis is Bayanihan Online.

However, Sahana FOSS Disaster Management System proved too technical to get off the ground quickly; and hopefully, the really appalling story of how it turned out IBM had given a grant to the NDCC some years back, to set the disaster management system in place, only for IT volunteers to discover during Ondoy, that no actual system was in place, will be fleshed out.

By the time Pepeng materialized, online volunteers had received, in a sense, their baptism of fire. Bury Me in This Dress knew what to do; Ralph Guzman knew what to do: provide directories for people to refer to.

RescueHub North Luzon: SOS Calls was another direct descendant of pioneering efforts, just days earlier.

View GMANews.TV Storm Watch: Pepeng in a larger map, for a direct descendant of the Ondoy Manila volunteer effort. See also ABS-CBN Northern Luzon Floods, October 2009.

While media was able to quickly sense the information-providing opportunities provided by volunteer-managed and created disaster maps, I began to wonder if branding these efforts wouldn’t lead to a wasteful mutiplicity of maps. This concern was eventually addressed by volunteers creating a Disaster Coordination Tool, which would include data created in media outfit map projects.

The way this tool works is as follows. You need a Gmail account to log in and use the tool. Type in the area, and then select option/s for the report: Insufficient Basic Commodities; report someone who needs Rescue/Stranded; report Missing Individuals; identify areas that lack Electricity, Water or which have no Cell Signal. And the general time frame for these reports.

Another menu option allows you to visualize the vicinity of a disaster.

You’ll see if you try it out, the tool now has a global application. I think it’s fair to say that the Philippine experience gave birth to a volunteer effort of potential benefit to the entire world.

Continuing online efforts include the Citizen-based interactive flood map (the actual Google Map is here), and OSM-PH Post-Disaster Response Reporting.

Useful resources have included Map Action and the following maps that graphically illustrate the scale of the twin tragedies of Ondoy and Pepeng:

The map above shows populations affected by Ondoy alone.

The map above, on the other hand, shows standing water depths days after the flooding took place.

The map above represents one of the first updates on Pepeng’s effect on infrastructure, including dams.

The more recent map above, continues to focus on flooding and dam water levels, as the effect of massive prestige projects like dams (for flood control, irrigation, and the generation of electricity) becomes a hotly debated issue.

The map above gives an idea, based on official reports, of populations that have been displaced and have sought shelter in evacuation centers.

However it’s this map, above, that demonstrates the scale of the Pepeng calamity: and the competing interests, between lowlanders and highlanders, centers that seek irrigation under controlled circumstances, and everyone wanting more and more electricity, and urban congestion leading to settlements and construction along flood plains in Northern Luzon.

III. Cause and Effect

The illustration above, circa 1940, points to the twin issues of planning and urban congestion -with the sub-issue of actual infrastructure- that were starkly brought to the public’s attention beginning with the devastation wrought by Ondoy. If terribly typhoons and massive floods are periodic phenomena, and if experts knew of these phenomena, why then, did so many people still suffer? The need for a new national capital, besides political imperatives (creating a modern metropolis for nations emerging from era of colonialism, something seen in Canberra and Brasilia, etc.) also had other imperatives to push the plans forward too: Manila had already outgrown the 1905 Burnham Plan by the late 1930s, for example.

The map above comes from George Bankoff’s 2003 article Vulnerability and Flooding in Metro Manila, and shows the naturally flood-prone portions of the Metro Manila area.

The map above comes from Flooding in Metro: who is to blame? by Newsbreak which shows that the actual flooding that took place shouldn’t have surprised anyone. What did surprise people is that veen in normally flood-prone areas, the depth of the floods, and the speed at which water rose, was unprecedented. The denudation of watershed was obviously a culprit, as is the destruction of so much green space within the metropolis.

An article originally conceived online, Who do we blame for untrammeled hyperurbanization in Metro Manila? by Kenneth Cardenas, points out that in the late 1930s the need for watershed areas had been recognized and actually planned for.

Here he illustrates the difference between the areas planned as green spaces (parks and watershed forest preserve) in the 1939 Quezon City plan, and how it turned out at present (basically: no green spaces were preserved).

The parks within the urbanized areas of Quezon City were supposed to compensate for the smaller lots that would make the city affordable for government employees and blue collar workers; while a large belt of forested watershed land (on the right side of the map) was precisely allocated because these areas were identified as flood-prone areas to begin with.

Again, contrast the planned development with how development has actually taken place, the patches of green being insignificant compared to what was deemed necessary for healthful city living.

Another illustration provided by Cardenas shows what should have been parkland given over to all sorts of other uses.

The illustration above comes from a graphic provided by environmental planner Armando N. Alli, focusing on the parts of Marikina and Quezon City that in olden times would have been filled with creeks and with a historical tendency to flood. Today it’s a big urban sprawl of shanties, gated communities, factories, roads. Alli marked out areas in magenta as the places that flooded badly. In some cases they coincide with relatively new public works, like the stretch of C-5 along Ateneo or in Libis, or part of Imelda Avenue. Such places may have sliced through natural drainage or older man-made drains, basically serving as dikes that trapped rainfall, which the concrete-covered communities couldn’t absorb, but which couldn’t drain into the Marikina River.

And yet, the illustration above, from 1940, shows that prewar infrastructure seemed more in harmony with the natural terrain; Alli told me that present-day roads do not provide for efficient drainage into natural channels because this is expensive.

This Google Earth image of the ill-fated Provident Village area, shows how close communities are to flood-prone riverbanks. Paulo Alcazaren provided me the following bullet points on the recent flooding:

Flooding happened in Metro Manila because of high rainfall and the inability of drainage system to cope with the volume of water, why?

- In spite of flood control plan made in 70s the proposed system was only partially completed – Manggahan floodway is only one of two major outlets for storm water (the planned Paranaque spillway never got constructed).

-Manggahan and the rest of the other drainage infrastructure including rivers, streams, esteros and canals are all blocked up with either accumulated garbage or informal settlers.

-the fractured governance of Metro Manila’s 17 towns and cities and its lack of coordination with Rizal and other adjoining provinces compromise any program for an integrated regional-based watershed and storm management. National authorities (HLURB and DPWH) overlap with MMDA, which is shunned by almost all local LGUs. The importance of coordination with the DENR  and LLDA, along with LUWA is never paid much attention. The public nor public officials realize the long term and far-reaching connection between vegetative cover in uplands, surface water in water bodies as well as the sub-suface water
management in aquifiers underneath the whole region (that is compromised too by all the urban sprawl pumping all this water out-and negatively impacting on surface run-off patterns).

- the above dysfunctional governance coupled with extensive urbanization, which reduces the ability for the whole region to absorb storm water, leads to a situation of total chaos-as no resposibility or accountability rests on anyone (unlike all other major metropolises in Asia which are governed by metroauthorities).

-private developers comprehensively ‘masterplan’ only within limited boundaries of their client’s lands. The main objective of the drainage plans of these developments is to just throw out any storm water to the nearest main road system or waterway. Since these developments often cross political LGU boundaries they fall in grey areas of territorial accountability and responsibility.

-there are no greenbelts, open parks and buffers left in the metro of any size to serve to complement ‘hard’ elements of stormwater
management. The remaining open land either in the lowlands or up to the hills of Antipolo and Montalban are being ravaged indescriminately for more urban sprawl ensuring a future of increased stormwater surges that will far outpace any mitigation fratured LGUs can throw at the problem.

IV. Postmortems and Moving Forward

Anthony Golez of NDCC said to CheChe Lazaro: “We prepared for Intensity 7 but Intensity 8 came,” while during a Cabinet meeting Secretary Cerge Remonde ended up suggesting, “Somehow, there needs to be more coordination.”

There remains the need for coordination, as pointed out by The Blips Network. See Uncoordinated disaster: The first 48 hours of Ondoy in the blog Random Salt. There’s this map: View NDCC asset deployment (First 48 hours of Ondoy) in a larger map. Also, Express Yourself.

A review of the Official History of the NDCC suggests that as its membership has expanded, its authority has dwindled and the capacity to plan ahead and not just respond, has diminished over decades.

A look at The Philippine Disaster Management Story: Issues and Challenges, prepared in 2001 in Thailand, gives an overview of this situation.

The Manila Times proposed Appoint a disaster Czar which is what the House proposed three days later. Here is one of the more recent drafts of the proposed law. The law, by all accounts, is a necessary one; but there remains the need for a postmortem.

Meanwhile, in the light of a the law proposing a permamently-organized disaster management agency, a Filipino-American who worked with the USA’s FEMA proposed the following, as a guide for what needs to be considered:

Outline of Responsibilities

For infrastructure, zoning, and development, Paulo Alcazaren proposes Lessons from the deluge. He’s long advocated the creation of a NCR-wide authority that subsumes existing local governments into a metropolitan government; his notes on the Malaysian and Singaporean insistence on integrating parkland into flood control makes for interesting reading.

In an email to me, Nathaniel von Einsiedel wrote the following:

As a practising Environmental Planner and former Commissioner for Planning of the Metropolitan Manila Commission (1979-1989), I would like to suggest the following actions in the wake of the disaster brought about by typhoon Ondoy.

Planning Proposals and Policies

1.  Immediate preparation of a Sub-Regional Structure Plan (covering the areas of Markina, Pasig, Pateros, Taguig, and portions of Cainta and Taytay) to guide future Government policy towards urban development in the area. This Structure Plan should indicate the desirable pattern of urban growth and preferred dominant land uses for at least the next decade.

2.  Strengthen the coordination mechanism between MMDA, HLURB, LLDA, and local authorities concerned in the enforcement of urban development controls.

3.  For the local authorities to initiate public-private participation in the formulation of local area plans for communities situated within flood-prone areas.

4.  For the national government to immediately issue a directive disallowing any expansion of settlements and roads in flood-prone areas.

5.  For the local authorities, in cooperation with HUDCC and its attached agencies, to immediate formulate shelter plans, particularly for low-income households. These plans should include on-site upgrading of depressed communities, sites-and-services projects for self-help housing, and estimation of land requirements for future low-cost shelter projects.

6.  For HUDCC to immediately issue a directive enforcing the 20% balanced housing requirement within urban areas.

7.  For the local authorities and HLURB to immediately review current Comprehensive Land Use Plans (CLUPs) and Zoning Ordinances, and revise these accordingly to mitigate the adverse effects of future floods.

8.  For local authorities to carefully review all new subdivision applications in terms of drainage and flood control implications, and to confer with DPWH and LLDA if necessary.

9. For local authorities to increase fines for violations of zoning ordinances and building regulations.

10. For HLURB to immediately review and amend current subdivisiond design standards, particularly the 30% open space requirement, since proposed subdivisions in flood-prone areas and/or adjacent to waterways may require more open space for flood mitigation purposes.

11. For the national government to study the possible revival of the Regional Cities Development Program which was aimed as developing counter-magnets to Metro Manila. This study should explore the feasibility of prioritizing current and new investment incentives provided by BOI, DTI, PEZA, PRA, etc., as well as the house loan programs of Pag-Ibig, to these cities.

This list is by no means exhaustive, but rather what immediately comes to my mind. Also the agencies I have mentioned may not be complete or appropriate as I have been out of the country for an extended period of time and not fully up to date on current institutional and administrative arrangements. I hope this is helpful.

On an additional, architectural note, this Filipino entry to a Guggenheim Foundation Shelter Design Contest, points to the growing desire to make even emergency dwellings ecologically-friendly.

For the costs, in micro and macro terms, see How much did Ondoy cost? For starters, try P23 billion. It’s crucial to note this article only illustrates the all-too-low estimates for Ondoy; officialdom is only beginning to grapple with the costs of Pepeng. The private sector, too, is grappling with the problem of the long-term costs of the twin disasters beginning to sink in: see How to Compensate for Donor Fatigue (in Pepeng relief).

Aside from the online mapping initiatives linked to above, the need for accurate and timely scientific data is covered in Free our data: rainfall and water level monitoring. This extremely educational entry points out the need for a better flood monitoring and forecasting system.

For media, John Nery in his column takes a look at Processing disaster news.

What remains to be done, is to connect these emergencies with past ones. The mudflows in Iloilo last year, the flooding in ARMM earlier, too, and past calamities in overlogged areas, all are part of a reality that is getting increasingly catastrophic because the frequency of calamities is increasing.

Note: There continues to be a need for relief as provinces continue to suffer. Since official Philippine government regulations are complicated, see the list of DSWD-Accredited NGOs,

The Long View: Calabasa’s cocker derby

The Long View
Calabasa’s cocker derby
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:10:00 10/15/2009

“Hoy Kapitan Calabasa! Sinong manok mo sa darating na sabungan?”

“Alam mo, scientific ako. Tinitingnan ko yung latest Sabungan Wishlist Survey para malaman ko san dapat ako tumaya.”

“Ganun ba? Eh ano ang latest?”

“Depende eh, kung ang batayan mo ay ang tanong ng SWS mismo—‘Banggitin niyo ang top three na manok na pinagpipilian ninyo’— mukhang llamado si Noymanok, at si Manny d’ Tsiken. Nasa listahan ng 60% ng respondents si Noymanok at 37% si Manny d’Tsiken.”

“Eh anu naman ang ibig sabihin niyan?”

“Simple lang naman. Kung ang mga tataya ang tatanungin, sa tingin ng tatlo sa bawa’t limang tataya, llamado si Noymanok. Dalawa sa bawa’t limang tataya ay may balak tingnan si Manny d’Tsiken.”

“Eh pano naman ang manok ni Madam, si Gibongsisiw? Texas yan ha, maputi, makinis, at matalinong manok.”

“Si basang sisiw, este Gibongsisiw? Naku, dejado yan. Sinali lang siya ng 4% ng mga tataya. Sabagay, 400% increase na rin yan, kasi nung huling SWS .04 percent lang ang may balak na pagisipan kung tataya sila sa kaniya. Kaya sa 2022 Cocker Derby may tsansa na siya.”

“Asus, kung ganun parang nuisance manok sa ngayon. Eh yung ibang manok naman? Si Tandang Bigote, dating champ iyan ha.”

“Ah, 18% ang nagsabing kasali siya sa kanilang top three, pero pababa, dati 25%; si Rooster Keso, 15%, bumaba din, dati 20%.”

“Sa makatuwid, ang masasabi lang ng SWS survey ay kung sinong pinag-aaral o siniseryoso ng mga tataya at di naman kung san naman talaga sila tataya? Kumbaga, llamado sa sabungan sila Noymanok at Manny d’Tsiken, pero two-to-one ang lamang nung nangunguna sa pinakalapit na contender?”

“Oo, tinitipuhan talaga ng nakakarami si Noymanok. May nakita nga akong dagdag na tanong na isiningit ng mga Kristo at ganito yung labas: ‘Kung tataya ka na ngayon, sinong pipiliin mo?’ Ang resulta: Noymanok 51%, Manny d’Tsiken 20%, Tandang Bigote 11% at Rooster Keso 8%. Walang tataya sa sisiw ng Madam mo.”

“Eh survey lang naman yan eh. Ang tinitingnan ko, yung manok mismo. Dun mo malaman sinong llamado at sinong dejado.”

“O, eh anong nakikita mo?”

“Simple lang yan. Alam mo, tuwing nakikita ko si Manny d’Tsiken, naiisip ko lang si Pandakebun, yung nanalo daw sa 2004 derby dahil nilagyan ng lason yung mga tare niya. Ang pagkakaiba lang naman nila ay wala namang nunal sa tuka si Manny d’Tsiken. Eh Susme! Pagod na ako sa mga iskandal.”

“Onga. Eh yung iba?”

“Si Tandang Bigote, ayan, medyo makunat na at alam mo ba, kinasuhan yan at na-convict ng pagtutuka sa mga bawal na bagay, eh buti na lang pinalaya na lang o kung hinde, champion tinola!”

“Eh si Rooster Keso?”

“Ngek. Hangang tilaok lang yan, parang di ngang pangsabong yan eh, parang lorong dakdak ng dakdak. Balang araw bigla na lang yang mangingitlog sa gitna ng sabong.”

“Ganun ba? Eh si Gibangsisiw?”

“Ah, yung basang sisiw ni Madam? Eh yun nga ang problema, si Madam din ang may-ari niyan at pare-pareho lang naman ang mga nakapaligid jan, kaya kung manalo yan eh tuloy lang ang ligaya para sa kanila. Eh de talo naman tayong lahat kung ganun.”

“Eh pano naman yang Noymanok na yan?”

“Aba, yan ang thoroughbred! Singkuwentang taon na akong sabungero ha, at tatlong beses pa lang akong nakakita ng ganitong manok. Nung 1953, kay Mambomanok, nung 1986 kay Corymanok, at ngayon kay Noymanok, llamadong-llamado, di man lang nagsisimula ang derby lumalambot na ang tuhod ng kalaban! Sarimanok na yan, padre. Legendary.”

“You two ha, Kapitan Calabasha! Congreshman Mando Rucut, no fork varrel for you!”

“Madam! Congressman and I were just-”

“Deshtabilishing my shabungan noh? But I don’t care. Nasha shabungero ang awa pero nasha krishto ang gawa. And I have the krishtosh on my shide, noh.”

“Excuse me, Madam?”

“You shee, I have comfuterished the betting shsyshtem, noh. My little Texash chicken will win, noh. Or if he doeshn’t win, do you think I will bet on jusht one chicken? Ashush.”

“But Madam what do you mean?”

“Eh shinshe the betting shyshtem ish now schientific, sho that even the betting and the actual fighting is schientifically determined by our comfuterished shyshtem, I win both waysh, noh. Take a look at thish fight—the krishto hash one finger fointing upwardsh. Oh, then betting ish?”

“In tens, Madam.”

“Very good. Some fork varrel for you. And now, hish finger ish fointing horishontally…”

“Hundreds, Madam.”

“Very good, Kapitan. And now, the fingersh fointing downwardsh…”

“Thousands, Madam.”

“Yesh. But did you shee the Talinomatique™ comfuterished betting and schcoring shyshtem?”

“Aba Ma’m, instead of tens, it registered hundreds! And substituted tens of thousands for thousands and millions for thousands! But why?”

“Itsh modern firsht world shtatush schcoring and betting, you shee. And goesh both waysh and ash we know, comfutersh never lie. So I will win, whoever winsh, finanshially and in termsh of the champion being who I want.”

“But Madam, that’s… unsportsmanlike!”

“Where ish your proof? Prove it in the profer forum!”

“But Madam, you just said!”

“Did I? Congreshman, did I shay anything jusht now? Remember your fork barrel…”

“’Padre, alam mo, Kapitan, that was Madam’s voice—but it wasn’t her saying it.”

“Sho you shee, Calabasha, here in Barangay Banshot, it’sh not who’sh llamado, it’sh who enjoysh the shupport of my machinery. Taposh na ang… bokshing.”

The real contenders

The Social Weather Station released its latest survey, and here’s an extract from their press release:

Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III took the top spot in the people’s three best successors to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2010, according to the Third Quarter 2009 Social Weather Survey, fielded over September 18-21, 2009.

Sixty percent gave Sen. Aquino’s name in response to the question, “Sa ilalim ng kasalukuyang Konstitusyon, ang termino ni Pang. Arroyo ay hanggang sa taong 2010 lamang at magkakaroon ng halalan para sa pagka-pangulo sa Mayo 2010. Sinu-sino sa palagay ninyo ang mga magagaling na lider na dapat pumalit kay Pang. Arroyo bilang Presidente? Maaari po kayong magbanggit ng hanggang tatlong sagot.” [Under the present Constitution, the term of Pres. Arroyo is up to 2010 only, and there will be an election for a new President in May 2010. Who do you think are good leaders who should succeed Pres. Arroyo as President? You may give up to three names].

The next most popular successor was Sen. Manny Villar, who was mentioned by 37%.

Aquino and Villar were followed by former Pres. Joseph Estrada at 18%, Sen. Francis Escudero at 15%, and Sen. Mar Roxas at 12%.

The survey found Vice-Pres. Noli De Castro mentioned by 8%, Sen. Loren Legarda by 5%, Defense Sec. Gilberto Teodoro by 4%, Sen. Panfilo Lacson by 2%, and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay by 2%.

At 1 percent each were MMDA Chairperson Bayani Fernando and Brother Eddie Villanueva.

Six percent could not give an answer, and 4% had no one to recommend.

The accompanying illustration, however, is more illuminating:

The question of the public’s own shortlist of successors for presidency has been tracked for two years now. Over that time frame, some names have remained in the running, and new ones have been added by the respondents. An interesting take on the results reported over the past two years can be found in Atheista.net’s It’s Time To Coin A New Term: Getting Roco’d, particularly in relation to two potential candidates, Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero.

Regarding Legarda, Atheista has this to say:

The sidelight perhaps is Loren Legarda. She probably won’t run for president; nor has she any chance of winning the top office for the rest of her life, but for a stretch of time from September 2007 to February 2009, Legarda was actually within striking distance of the top spot. This is reminiscent of the late Raul Roco’s performance in surveys prior to 2001 wherein he was constantly topping polls. While it was clear that Roco did himself in with the exposure of his lackluster political machinery, dodgy choice of senatoriables and *ugh* running mate; it is unclear what Legarda did to sabotage her own chances.

A lot of people hated Legarda for flip-flopping on Gloria – and ironically, this is despite the already growing hatred for the GMA Administration back in 2004 — but she still managed to bag 44% of the respondents’ votes of confidence back in 2007. I guess that only means that the 2004 incident was not the reason why she was dropped. The only hypothesis I could offer is that her supporters identified with Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar – the two candidates whose popularity rose as hers was plummeting.

And here’s Atheista on Francis Escudero:

One interesting sidelight is how surprisingly bad Chiz Escudero’s showing has been. Despite topping the recent senatorial polls and taking every opportunity to spew out empty words on television, Escudero’s preference ratings have stayed pretty much the same over the last 2 years. There is no momentum at all. I won’t even be surprised if he finishes a distant third (or even fourth) when all is said and done. Joseph Estrada might even erode his chances of a third spot finish (not that it matters!) since Escudero’s base of support is supposedly the youth – a demographic that is also captured by the Aquino juggernaut.

Personally, I think the survey results are useful not in terms of presenting a snapshot of how voters might vote, were elections held today, but rather, who, in the public mind, are the real contenders at this point in time. I’ve suggested in the past that we’re seeing a return, in voter attitudes and orientation, towards seeing the presidential contest as a two party fight, which is a more natural order of things as far as a presidential system with no runoff elections is concerned.

From this perspective, the fight for the presidency is between Benigno Aquino III and Manuel Villar Jr. The other candidates will determine who gets to shave off votes from the leading contenders and who ends up losing more votes to the minor candidates more than the other.

Philippine Commentary in Why SWS Presidential Survey Does Not Add Up To 100% But 300% looks at the survey methodology, and proposes,

My take is that when the respondents get to that third possible choice, they end up naming their father, mother, wife, uncle, mayor, themselves! or some other unknown that together with everybody else’s third choices usually make up to half of the SWS data!

But as it should, the data does add up to 300% in all columns.   I have a theory I cannot prove, that it is actually the second placer in these  SWS polls that represents a kind of plurality choice.  Noynoy has come out of nowhere (less than 0.14 percent!) to take a whopping –but sympathy confounded–60%.

Now there’s a graphic in the entry that’s quite interesting. Philippine Commentary for some time has been pointing out that what gets lost in all the reporting and commentary on the SWS surveys is the percentage of undecided voters or those who decide on no choices whatsoever:

The Chart above does not include the present survey, the first one which has Aquino manifesting himself as a top-of-mind choice among respondents as a potential president. If you remember the surveys, prior to the Aquino phenomenon, had Villar as the front-runner; in fact it seemed entirely possible he’d reached the critical 25% threshhold political pros considered the make-or-break level for a presidential candidate: it’s what would mark a candidate as the man to beat in a presidential election in a multi-candidate race.

There were questions raised about whether or not Villar’s reaching the crucial 25% level in the surveys represented his peaking too early or not; this question was complicated by the entry of Aquino, and initial survey findings of his obtaining startlingly high figures not only in Luzon, but the Visayas (Lito Osmena’s privately-commissioned Cebu survey) and Mindanao (Rodrigo Duterte’s privately commissioned Davao congressional districts survey).

Whether one doubts the usefulness or even methodology of the question SWS has been tracking for two years now, the question of whether or not Villar had peaked too soon, for example, or the percentage of support Aquino actually enjoys, can only be answered by surveys that ask potential voters to make specific choices based on who they’d vote for, were elections held that day.

There was a rider -a privately-commissioned set of questions- attached to the SWS September 18-21 Survey, which addresses the questions of who, specifically, voters would vote for, for the presidency, vice-presidency, and in terms of tandems.

Here are the results of that privately-commissioned rider set of questions:

Based on the above, Villar seems to have peaked; or at the very least, the entry of Aquino, whose national results are in harmony with previous location-specific surveys, and make him the front-runner, means the Villar campaign has to work doube-time; what I don’t know, because these were the only results provided me, is if there were other candidates reflected in the results or whether the rider limited the choices to the figures above.

Northern Luzon needs your help!

Note: continuing updates/alerts/information via my Twitter account.

Please read this appeal in the Marocharim Experiment: Northern Luzon needs your help:

Typhoon Pepeng is wreaking havoc in Northern Luzon. There are reports of landslides, floods, and devastation in the Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, and my homeland of the Cordilleras. The worst part for me, personally, is that many of my friends still live in the area, and are suffering the brunt of this storm. Messages from friends are describing a waterworld in Baguio that I never got to experience in 22 years of living there, and it saddens me to realize that the geography of Northern Luzon makes it a challenge to help people.

Let us rise up to that challenge; not only as Filipinos, but as human beings who help out in times of calamity, disaster, and devastation.

For us here in Metro Manila, the Internet has been a powerful tool for rescue and recovery in the wake and wrath of Typhoon Ondoy. We can harness that same power for the victims of Typhoon Pepeng up north, and perhaps translate that to a relief effort that will alleviate their suffering.

The scale of the calamity -following at the hells of the calamitous past days in Metro Manila and surrounding provinces- means all those involved in Typhoon Ondoy relief are already exhausted and resources are stretched. The ongoing power failures in Metro Manila are also surely hampering the coordination of relief and rescue efforts, as well as the receiving, collation, and transmittal of information.

An overview of the situation as its developing can be gleaned from this map:
View GMANews.TV Storm Watch: Pepeng in a larger map. For the database version of this map, see Typhoon Pepeng Disaster Response Database. To add a report to the database, Use this Online Form.

Other media organizations establishing their own maps (see ABS-CBN’s Northern Luzon Floods October 2009) but I think it’s necessary at this point to appeal to the media organizations, considering the scope of the disaster and the manner in which the public is turning to media as an adjunct to official channels, to consolidate their efforts. All media outfits can rely on the same map and form a pool of volunteers to maintain it. A common reference is a wiser use of resources than simply insisting on duplicating work or information on the shallow basis of not using information branded by one media entity.

Once again, online volunteers are passing along updates and appeals for rescue/relief. Volunteers are also preparing themselves for a fresh round of relief efforts.The ad hoc tools that emerged from the Ondoy Calamity have been brought out once more and are being used for consolidating and collating rescue efforts, situation updates, and aid efforts.

Please make sure that all appeals for help or situation reports you encounter online are reported here: RescueHub North Luzon: SOS Calls. Encourage people to send SMS (Text) updates if no Internet connection for any concerns or to report additional cases, please contact the volunteers updating the RescueHub at 09159885674 (Edgar), 09233151120 (@kay_bu) or 09299509173 (@bicolanodevil).

See Ralph Guzman: Holtine Numbers for Northern Luzon Typhoon Victims for national and regional numbers to call. I suggest we all use this directory as the Master Directory, and perhaps find a way to maintain a Consolidated Directory for all bloggers to refer to, again to minimize unecessary duplication of effort. Zambales is operating on this principle.

For organizations and volunteers, concerned family members and friends, please refer to Bayanihan Online, which is consolidating Twitter/FaceBook updates, appeals, and information.

Donations to the Philippine National Red Cross, to the Department of Social Welfare and Development, various Catholic and religious charities, will be required. Once again, Official Philippine Government Regulations on Donating for Relief. And please refer to How to Avoid Donations for Flood Victims From Being Taxed at Customs:

DONATIONS TO WORLDVISION DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION INC.

Donations in kind are welcome & can be sent directly (door-to-door) to their Quezon City Headquarters in

WORLDVISION DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION
c/o David Liban
389 Quezon Avenue corner West 6th Street,
Diliman, Quezon City Philippines

Please send an email to wv_phil@wvi.org or call +632 3727777 to inform them about this donation including all the details of the shipment and you will receive a letter of acceptance will be given as well as proper coordination.

Worldvision will make an inventory of the donations and coordinate directly with the DSWD for declaration as well with the local government units (LGU) for distribution.

Those abroad who wish to send in monetary donations to this organization are also encouraged in order to avoid the hassle of shipping.  This is a Christian, private and credible organization that uses up only 6-8% of annual financial contributions for administration expense while the rest goes to beneficiaries.

To know more about Worldvision Dev’t Foundation, you may check out their website.

As a celebrity advocate for Worldvision for 7 years now, I can vouch in behalf of Worldvision that donations that are made listed for the Relief Operation Fund will go to the typhoon victims. Please remember too include this note in your donation.  All monetary donations must be accounted for in order for it to be used immediately and for the purpose it was made.  Unaccounted donations will float in the account unused for 6 months so please indicate all cash donations for the Relief Operation Fund.

For monetary donations made through bank deposit, instructions are listed on this page.

For online donations to Worldvision, click here for the online form.

DONATIONS THROUGH THE PHILIPPINES NATIONAL RED CROSS:

The following lists the procedure in order to avoid your donations from being taxed at customs.
Before sending the goods to Phil National Red Cross,

1. Send a letter of intent to donate to the PNRC addressed to:

PNRC Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang
gwenpang@redcross.org.ph
and CC pnrcnhq@redcross.org.ph

2. A letter of acceptance from PNRC shall be sent back to the donor

3. Immediately after shipping the goods, please send the following:

(a) original Deed of Donation,
(b) copy of packing list and
(c) original Airway Bill for air shipments or Bill of Lading for sea shipments to:

The Philippine National Red Cross National Headquarters
c/o Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang,
Bonifacio Drive, Port Area, Manila 2803, Philippines.

4. All boxes or goods shall be sent under the name of

The Philippine National Red Cross National Headquarters
c/o Secretary General Gwendolyn Pang,
Bonifacio Drive, Port Area, Manila 2803, Philippines.

5. Notify PNRC of the shipment details as soon as good are sent.

“The PNRC will not accept rotten, damaged, expired or decayed goods. Expiration date of food and medicines should not be less 6 months. Medicines should comply with our standard – no to herbal or alternative medicines pls. Though we appreciate your generosity, the PNRC also discourages donations of used clothes as this is not allowed by Phil Customs. For those who are sending good, we appreciate more if you could also contribute to the mobilization or operation expenses of the distribution of goods.” ~ Sec. Gwen Pang

Everyone is further encouraged to send in your monetary donations through this page of Philippines National Red Cross or you may donate online via credit card through this page to avoid the hassle of shipment.

The Long View: Ignoring plans has a price

The Long View
Ignoring plans has a price
By Manuel L. Quezon III
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:21:00 10/08/2009

In 2003, the New Zealand social and environmental historian Greg Bankoff published a map of Metro Manila, with grey splotches that he identified as the flood-prone areas of the metropolis, mainly Navotas, Manila itself, Pasay City, Taguig, and parts of Marikina. That map coincides almost exactly with one put together by Newsbreak and published on ABSCBNNews.com showing the places that actually got flooded due to Storm “Ondoy.”

However, the flooding was even more extensive than what Bankoff expected in some places, particularly in the Marikina area. Still, the first point to realize is that those who have studied these things and people in the area have known for ages where it tends to flood. And in the past, these natural realities were taken into account in environmental planning for cities.

Kenneth Cardenas, an MA Sociology student in University of the Philippines Diliman, began an article to inquire into this situation, in his Facebook account of all places. He noticed in the news, for example, that “large areas of the east bank of the Marikina River—the exact same areas that were subjected to a massive flash flood—should not have been settled in the first place. Plans that have been drawn up in 1977 called for limits on construction in these areas and public works designed to withstand even the once-in-a-century flooding.”

He also noted that in Quezon City, “a ridge along the west bank of the Marikina River, which should have been preserved as a watershed, was paved over as exclusive subdivisions (such as La Vista, Loyola Grand Villas, Blue Ridge, and Ayala Heights), schools (Ateneo de Manila University and Miriam College) or settled as slums.”

In fact, according to Cardenas, “the 1941 Frost Plan for Quezon City identified a protected area on the west bank that stretched from the Batasan area in the north down to Libis in the south.”

I, for one, was worried sick over a friend and his family stranded for days in their flooded house in the vicinity of Eastwood in Libis, Quezon City.

But planning is one thing. Even if as far back as 1940, city planners knew where it flooded because of geography and planned accordingly, and set aside wide areas of greenery to serve as a natural sponge, so to speak, such lands became increasingly valuable to real estate developers, the government units that profit from the fees and businesses such developments create, and an expanding population demanding places to live.

Cardenas says the result is this: what was meant to be park land—a healthy place for relaxation and recreation under the 1940 Frost Plan for Quezon City—has, by today, instead become a place for slums, a golf course, and villages—a density never intended by the original planners.

Which brings us to Paulo Alcazaren, and his recent Philippine Star column on why Singapore and Malaysia were able to put in fairly effective flood-control infrastructurem and we Filipinos, on the other hand, have failed. The Singaporeans and Malaysians, he said, realized the benefits of park land and green spaces, and preserved them, precisely because of their contribution to flood control. At the same time, with powerful national governments, extensive well-planned (looking ahead not 20 or 30 years but decades further than that) flood control projects could be undertaken.

Alcazaren pointed out that much of our flood control infrastructure dates to the martial law era—the Manggahan floodway, for example.

On Wikipedia you’ll find a map of the flood plain of Marikina, and what Manggahan does, which is, to connect the Marikina River to Laguna de Bay. The problem is, if both river and lake are suddenly filled up because the surrounding areas of Marikina can’t even slow down the draining of water by temporarily absorbing them, then the whole thing turns into a morass of flooded homes.

Cardenas also points out that as the middle and upper classes look for someone to blame, the easiest thing to do is blame the poor. Comparing our situation with Indonesia is instructive, he says. We have similar per capita incomes, but why is it that 41 percent of poor urban Filipinos live in slums, often in vulnerable areas, while only 23 percent of Indonesia’s urban poor live in slums?

Let me try to describe to you a graphic provided by Armando N. Alli, focusing on the parts of Marikina and Quezon City that in olden times would have been filled with creeks and with a historical tendency to flood. Today it’s a big urban sprawl of shanties, gated communities, factories, roads. Alli marked out areas in magenta as the places that flooded badly. In some cases they coincide with relatively new public works, like the stretch of C-5 along Ateneo or in Libis, or part of Imelda Avenue. Such places may have sliced through natural drainage or older man-made drains.

What nature had designed as a kind of soggy sponge, which environmental and urban planners over 60 years ago believed should be unbuilt, green space shielding the rest of the metropolis has been turned by the private sector, with the OK of government, into places where the public will have to confront the problem of flooding over and over again. The road works, for example, serve as dikes, retaining water since they’re higher than the surrounding areas, worsening the flooding.

So do we need to draw up a new coordinating authority, with greater powers for emergencies? Yes, but with so many good plans ignored, what plans are in place to improve flood-control? And can it even be done with our existing laws and political setup?

Many expect this to become an electoral issue everywhere in the country where floods have caused unprecedented devastation.

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