ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews/1 Oct) -- Environmentalists here expressed alarm over the government’s neglect in putting up measures to prevent disasters, like what happened when Typhoon Ondoy hit Metro Manila.

Mark Cervantes, project officer of Ecoweb Inc., an NGO specializing on disaster risk reduction, said disasters happen because Filipinos love to talk about how to manage it, but “there is a need for all of us to start thinking and responding to natural hazards through mitigation and preventive measures.”

He pointed out that disasters are “not natural” and that “people have control.” He said that natural hazards are there, but these will become worse because of human actions, like in the case of climate change that is largely blamed on human activities.

Cervantes said that after his years of experience in development work, the government and non-government sectors tend to miss on the most important part -- “building societies to be resilient” so people can bounce back to normal life immediately after calamities.

He said that it is imperative for the government to integrate disaster risk reduction (DDR) programs by doing risk assessment and analysis and developing of contingency plans and comprehensive development plans. 

Regina Antequisa, Ecoweb executive director, said that civil society, in partnership with the academe and the Social Action Center of the church, will meet to discuss possible alternative actions in response to climate change.

Antequisa saw the need to invigorate the people’s sense of environmentalism.

She noted that Filipinos, right after disasters (like the recent floods in Iligan and neighboring Cagayan de Oro), seem very concerned and wanted to act immediately. But after sometime, the enthusiasm disappears, especially among the politicians and government officials.

“Only those who are directly affected, those who lost homes and loved ones, could not forget the horror and would thus initiate to do something so as to avoid a repeat of the same experience,” she commented.

Councilor Rolando Maglinao, a human rights and environment advocate at the Sangguniang Panlungsod who worked with city engineers to check the repair of bridges damaged by floods this year, was quick to note that what officials have done so far are just corrective in nature.

“We still want to make preventive measures by letting the city government find ways to resettle the communities living near the river banks, to pro-actively work for rehabilitation of the city watershed areas, and to plant bamboos and trees along tributaries of rivers,” he said.

Maglinao also hoped that should Iligan finally have its own lone congressional district, the countryside development funds of the legislative representative could be allocated to re-engineer the flood control ripraps along the major rivers of the cities. (Violeta M. Gloria / MindaNews)

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