Where is government in times of calamities?

HAPPY WEEKEND
Gina P. Dizon

The desperate cries of the victims on the recent typhoons that hit Manila and Northern Luzon has showed the inadequacy of the government in addressing calamities.

Where is the government, victims asked as shivering children sat on roofs and tables and innocently looked at the waters rising up while their parents desperately held on to them and waited for help to come.

One can’t help crying, hoping, praying or seething with anger where government officials went. What were they doing while heavy flooding in Manila, Marikina, Malabon, Muntinlupa, Makati, Pasay, Pasig, Valenzuela, San Juan and Quezon City was going on? Flood waters in some areas reached the second and third floors of buildings, forcing residents to seek refuge on the roof of their houses while waiting for help to come.

Help did not come until the flood waters receded and people got down from their perching areas. At the crucial time when the waters were raging and rushing to residential lots and submerging houses and property worth millions, all that could be heard were people crying and hoping and seething with anger for help to come.

At their life at wit’s ends, they could only cling to whatever rope or climb atop their roofs. The unfortunate ones were displaced while more unfortunate ones died reported at a count of 100. Some 1.8 million were affected whether they were displaced, lost properties, got sick, or died.
While there are causes to blame like ineffective and faulty drainage systems being small that clogged the sewerage of Manila, the fact remains that government has been badly needed in such crucial moments when death was just a step away. This government which has all the resources to command and buy was not there when their help was much wanted, reports said.

Rey, a resident of Provident area in Marikina had to buy a P100 thousand motor boat in order to get his family and his ailing father out of the flood. While the government
said they were not able to go to Provident because of the rushing flood torrents, here is a man who hasn’t manned a motorboat all his life and for the first time had to do it in order to save the life of his sick father and his family and others including his neighbors.

If this private citizen was able to do it alone, why was the government not able to with its funds and resources? For the rest of cash strapped victims in Marikina and elsewhere in Region 3 and 4 and NCR, they could only pray for help to come. And speaking about resources, we have the government’s military forces with their helicopters who can haul people out from rooftops. Yet, where were they? (This column must be equally sending out the desperate cries of the victims equating helicopters to do the needed help) They only circled the victimized areas and that’s it. It’s good the rains stopped and the floods receded.

What does the obvious inattention and neglect of the government mean? It means inadequate management in crisis. Either Chief of Staff Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has lost her commanding power or she failed to exercise it. And obviously, other officers responsible have failed to exercise the necessary attention to the victims at the crucial hour that they needed it most.

After the storm was over, we heard of cleaning up drives launched by presidential candidates for the 2010 elections like Sen. Richard Gordon and other officials as well. Then, the government said they were distributing food, proving housing, livelihood, repairing drainage and what have you projects.

Then they announced to the world that they were doing something to ease the plight of the victims. This, considering that they were not there the moment the people badly needed them.