After the deluge

EDITORIAL

Much can be learned from the country’s experience with the onslaught of typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng. Perhaps function of the National Disaster Coordinating Council should be examined so that it could be more responsive to man-made or natural calamities. Is the NDC merely a “coordinative body?” Is its function to coordinate from the top level of government to local government units or vice versa?

Maybe, the NDCC should be given more teeth in implementation of its functions but not at the expense of local government who know more about the situation in their localities than credit-grabbing officials in the national level. Perhaps, the NDCC should be renamed National Disaster Management Council (NDMC) to be more relevant and responsive to the times and during such occasions.

In relation to this, maybe our top officials could realign the focus of the P1.541-trillion national budget for 2010 and allot more money for calamity programs related to development and environment enhancement or protection. Ondoy and Pepeng washed away not only towns and cities but also the moorings of the 2010 budget. Congress could cut Maintenance (MOOE) items proposed by Malacañang to other operating expenses and convert the budget into a blueprint for reconstruction and development.

On environment, the budget could also be realigned for programs like regreeening. In the Cordillera alone, the regional office of the National Economic Development Authority disclosed reforestation of the region’s over 481,000 hectares of denuded watersheds and forests will take at least 100 years with the ongoing rate of denudation.

The advocacy on the need to reforest the region’s devastated watersheds and forests gained public attention after the region was heavily devastated by the onslaught of Pepeng which claimed over 300 lives in the different places because of the triggered landslides from the mountain slopes.

The NEDA said reforestation of the region’s over 481,000 hectares of denuded watersheds and forests will take at least 100 years with the ongoing rate of denudation. More budget from the national government would help a lot in alleviating disasters and helping restore the country’s deteriorating environment.