Sustainable development

NO HOLDS BARRED
Ike Señeres

MANILA -- Sustainable development is a very complex process, but at the very root of this process is environmental management which is the most basic of all. It is very important for all of us, including our government officials to first understand that sustainable is a process, meaning that it is a complete supply chain that has to be managed and secured from beginning to end.

It is also very important for us to understand that environmental management is also a process that should be coordinated and integrated, meaning that it should not be addressed as fragmented pieces, not as single parts of a whole, but also as a complete supply chain, encompassing all aspects of the environment, including the weather which is also the most basic of all.

For so many years now, I have always believed that the name and the structure of the National Disaster Coordinating Council erroneous and defective, and it is a good time now to again review and correct whatever is wrong with it. In this connection, let me say that the name and structure of the Federal Emergency Management Administration is in the right place, more so now that it has been placed under the supervision of the Department of Homeland Security.

Let me start by saying that in many advanced countries, emergency management is a private sector function meaning that it is civilian led, even if it would always involve the participation of military units, as a matter of course. Here in the Philippines , the NDCC is chaired by the Secretary of National Defense, which is perhaps the reason why we are misled into thinking that our emergency management is civilian led, even if it is really not the case more often than not.

Perhaps the findings are not yet conclusive, but I would not hesitate to say that the density of the rainfall that caused the recent floods is already an effect of climate change on one hand, and of global warming on the other hand. Having said this, I could argue that climate change preparedness should be treated like one part of the complete supply chain or process that should also include disaster preparedness.

It is already a known fact nowadays that the Philippine Air Force and the Philippine Navy do not have the aircraft and the vessels needed for our air and sea defense, how much more for rescue purposes. On the other hand, it is also a known fact that there are more civilian aircraft and vessels that our military forces have on hand. Knowing this, is this not enough reason for us to realize that our emergency management should really become civilian led? How and when are we going to move towards this direction?

Perhaps it is just a matter of semantics, but it is really wrong to say that disasters could be “coordinated” so to speak. The more appropriate term if ever should be “disaster mitigation”, but even that is too limiting and too reactionary, considering that “disaster preparedness” should really be the more proactive and more forward looking terminology.

As expected, illegal logging and drainage clogging are again being blamed for the onset of the floods. While these two causes might be partially the culprits for the flooding, the problem of flooding is actually caused by more reasons, given the fact that there is really a supply chain that also complicates this problem, being also a PROCESS that builds up towards the complication of this disaster.

Also as expected, our local and national officials are taking the high profile in showing to voters how active they are in giving help to the disaster victims. That is a good thing for them to do, and we are thankful to them for what they are doing, but how many of them would actually work on the long term solutions long after the short term publicity value of this flood is gone?

Going back to the subject of my earlier column, when is our national leadership going to revisit Agenda 21, our long term agenda for sustainable national development? When are our national leaders going to realize that short term natural disasters are directly related to long term sustainability?

In the days to come, we will read in the newspapers how much damage the floods have inflicted to our national productivity. I hope that these statistics would be a wake up call to all of us, to start thinking long term for good.

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