Disaster preparedness

EDITORIAL

Every year, man-made and natural disasters happen in this country, yet it seems, we, particularly our officials, don’t learn from these.

The recent Typhoon “Ondoy” which ravaged the country particularly Luzon resulting to the death of many individuals showed once again our ineptitude and lack of preparedness during such calamities.

This nation’s top officials were there blabbing away on television like they were in command of the situation while the people, particularly in Metro Manila were out getting soaked in the rain or drowned in the floods.

Of course, Malacanang and Cabinet officials said they coordinated with provincial governors, city and municipal mayors and barangay heads to immediately reactivate their respective disaster coordinating and price monitoring councils to address the devastating effects of “Ondoy.”

Acting Interior and Local Government Secretary Melchor Rosales said he had called on chief executives of affected local government units in Luzon to exert vigorous effort to mitigate effects of typhoons and other calamities by instituting measures on disaster readiness.

He said LGUs should activate the local price coordinating councils or to organize these councils where there are none, to protect consumers from unscrupulous individuals who take advantage of the situation. Local officials, he added, must also address hoarding and exorbitant and unreasonable price increases of essential and prime communities through regular inspections of public and private markets and rice warehouses.

But what happened? The people starved due to lack or inadequacy of food. Constituents complained of lack of services from concerned agencies. The saving grace was the few hardy who battled the forces of nature to save victims, some at the expense of thief lives while officials were just that -- blabbering away.

The National Disaster Coordinating Council once again proved its incompetence. It was better in the provinces where governors and mayors who had a better grasp of the situation managed to come up with disaster mitigations plans and implemented these.

It may be too late in the day for the administration to come up with a more effective disaster preparedness program as elections are just around the corner. Now that another super typhoon just struck the country, many constituents of this Banana Republic are once again left on their own to fend for themselves, not expecting help from government which is now deemed paralyzed as a result of too much corruption and politics.