Safety for Residents in banks of Rivers, Lakes

Malacañang is going in right direction

 

In the vicinity of Fairview on the way towards SM and Robinson’s, one passes by a relatively long bridge at the bottom of which could have been a river in the past. The supposed river is now dry and a densely populated place. Someone with a nice lawyer, goons and other hirelings, collect rent or sell parcels of that dry river bed. To make the river bed a homely and respectable place, it was dubbed by this “owner” and possibly his family, as Fair Lane. Sounds like a wealthy subdivision, no? The owner has an enemy. The enemy also has lawyers and hired goons, etc. When Ondoy came, these two quarreling owners became invisible. Naturally, the river bed was first to be inundated with powerfully rushing flood waters. Ondoy did not wait for the residents to haul their appliances and houses. The residents were even surprised why suddenly everyone was in panic, shouting, Malapit Na!!! Gissiiiing!!! Likaaaas!!! What was happening to Fairlane Village?

Most of the homes went stampeding with the surface runoff water together with personal belongings. And now the owner of the river bed is collecting rent again. Dear Pres. Arroyo, Sec. Teodoro, Sec. De Castro, could you please have these owners of our river beds arrested and exiled to the gallows for the rest of their lives?  How many people are they fooling and how many will suffer from the acts of these evil doers?

Finally, the Office of the President is wizening up to the impact of calamity not only in Metro Manila but on a national scale. On October 15, 2009, Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed an Executive Order stopping squatters or informal settlers in Metro Manila and other provinces’ riverbanks. This dovetails with our recommendation to remove and not to allow these settlers anymore from living in the sewerages, major or minor rivers or any place at the bank of a body of water.

It is only hoped that Malacañang will do the same to our sewerages. But understandably, that is the problem of Chairman Bayani Fernando of the MMDA, that he heads and the DPWH.

16/10 10:14AM

GMA orders relocation of waterway settlers

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo will implement the forced relocation of thousands of families living on riverbanks and other high-risk areas in Metro Manila and nearby provinces even if it would mean losing the political support of local government officials, presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde said yesterday. Read the rest of the article here.

Local Disaster Management

Thank you for your post Archangel. Pity those people who drowned in the flood. Of course Sec. Teodoro is saying that no one drowned at sea this time.  But it will be the height of shamelessness if the Coast Guard allowed or dispatched ships in those conditions in September 26. This should actually have been done a long time ago.  It is ideal to localize.  If they think in terms of a network platform of staging operations, they can actually do it. This concept is readily and easily available even on the internet. Still and all, there is a problem in communications, in money matters — er, economics, a lot of politics (Liberal Party posturing with the leftists that government is to blame for the mess), a lot more corruption, the lack of equipment for forecasting and rescue be it for typhoons, floods, avalanche, log stampede, etc. at Pag-asa, Office of Civil Defense, Philippine Navy, Philippine Coast Guard, Philippine Air Force, the Maritime Group of the PNP, local government units, among others.  Yes, I vote for going local, after all nothing is truer than the doctrine of ideal time and motion: more results with less motion and less time.  Let’s only hope that our leaders try for once to think straight and forget about agendas.  Lives are at stake.  Who knows if they or their loved ones are next?

Postscript:  Its also sad that the relatives and the people of the late Cory will not have a mind to return our flood control funds from Japan. Damn that we’re paying for the loan to the Japanese.  Sad as well that we have to say good bye to all the other monies stolen for other flood control projects.