Super Storm HAIYAN (Yolanda): SomeThoughts After

Leyte was the home of my father & grandparents & because of storms that visited them with constant regularity they sailed to the promise land Mindanao just before the 2nd world war through the rough Pacific Ocean & found a safe home in a cove in the Davao Gulf. Yes, Leyte & Samar and the eastern seaboard of the Visayas are in the typhoon belt. But, a storm like Yolanda, a year ago in November 2013, - a Category 5 storm – is rare & probably the first in our country.  

I was in the affected areas of Panay islands as part of an international team monitoring DFID funding to storm affected areas for the UK government.  

     Tents at Estancia, Iloilo: 2 mos. after Storm Yolanda/Jan 23, 2014 

Picture credit : "HOPE FLOATS" Baby being rescued in Tacloban. (Courtesy of Gen. Charly Holganza/via Willy Ramasola)

It is said that hindsight is the lowest form of intelligence but still the lessons of Yolanda must be burned in our memory to inform knowledge on disaster preparedness. What were these lessons?We need to understand storm surge or the rise in the level of water that swept through the inland killing thousands of our fellows in the Visayas. Project Noah of our government gave ample warning on height of waves by area or towns a few days before Yolanda but it seemed too technical or the nature of its harm did not register with the ordinary person. For example, 5-6 meters of storm surge did not register as about 15 feet high of water that is comparable to two floors as standard height of one floor level is about 8 feet only. In fairness to our institutions- we have been using the metric system and using feet is not metric. But- the strength of the Yolanda storm surge and the direction of the storm surge were not known. Basic information is still a gap for now, such as shape of sea floor which is a factor in storm surges.

Help was immediate in cities but perhaps because of the volume and scale of need, many far flung areas were not reached immediately and whole villages did not have food for days. So, pundits and well meaning persons have suggested that helicopters from government and private sector could have reached these areas in a flash. Media and television networks reached these areas first but people were expecting food. We need to imagine the issue of transportation in disasters some more. Some of the road blocks could have been removed by immediate clearing.

A few days after a storm, the task is relief. After a month or so the rehabilitation begins.During the relief period, it is best to do water filtration and food production on site.In relief, we attend to the needs of the living first. And, so in the case of Leyte, the burial of hundreds of dead bodies had to be postponed and so rotting cadavers lay strewn in streets for days. That health personnel & morticians were gaps is an understatement. 

Disaster preparedness of local governments was impaired simply because our public officials were likewise affected by the storm itself. Of course-the solution to this is our national government taking over. This is the raison d’etre of a declaration of a state of a national calamity and or a national emergency.

While, we saw the unspeakable destruction of Yolanda in our own television sets and links in social media, people in the disaster areas were cut off from the wired world when digital & telecommunications structures were destroyed by the storm itself. Relatives abroad and elsewhere and our fellows in disaster areas were disconnected and for many being incommunicado meant worry that felt like the grief of death itself. So, do we include telecommunications kit as part of our disaster preparedness kit? Do we restore the inexpensive telegraph system?

Do we need a cabinet level national implementing line agency focused on disaster preparedness? What we have now is a National Risk Reduction Management Council that cascades to the local government levels. Do we need to budget a people’s survival funds as part of our disaster preparedness? For sure we need to review our building codes. And we need to pass pronto the National Land Use Plan.One thing sure, we have to rethink a lot of things creatively for disaster preparedness, with the use of state –of- the-art technology and with the tools for planning at national and local government levels.

The World Is Still In Super Typhoon Yolanda Areas 

Our government says there are 171 cities and towns affected by super storm Yolanda, even as the face of destruction was both Tacloban and Guiuan.

Our international team was in Panay islands and months after the typhoon, the women and men were still emotional about the loss of homes and livelihood. 

Panay was the cultural capital of the country in the late 19th and early 20th century.

We were stationed in beautiful Estancia, a coastal town, and one of the best fishing grounds of the Philippines. Aside from destroyed homes, Estancia  also suffered from oil spills from an overturned tanker which make fishing almost impossible for now.
The fisherfolks say that indeed, there is more dignity in fishing than receiving dole outs and so they are clamoring for more sustainable livelihood programs to help them get to their boats.

In the province of Capiz, 77 thousand houses were destroyed by the storm. And so, there was a sub national hub in Roxas City, its capital. A hub is a coordination camp for humanitarian aid by both local and international agencies. A hub is where issues are addressed by what kind of response and by which agencies or clusters. Humanitarian work is according to clusters: camp coordination & camp management, food & agriculture, nutrition, shelter, logistics, health, emergency telecommunications, education, protection, water, sanitation & hygiene, early recovery & livelihood cluster. There are constant inter - agency assessment sessions and cluster meetings.

The international respondents come from all over the world: from UN offices and agencies all over the world and from offices of international aid agencies. Most are deployed three months at a time. The locals are now are into the task of the early recovery phase: shelter, livelihood, food security, among others. 

After the temporary tents, families are moving back to where they were or to bunkhouses. Many are informal settlers and I find families going back to houses located in private lands with no security of tenure. Thus, our local line agencies and international funders can look into more secure housing projects through land acquisitions and community mortgage programs. As we observed earlier in other typhoon and conflict affected areas, buying lands for our displaced communities is a potential source of corruption by overly pricing of lands which makes housing projects expensive for poor mortgagors. And as well,there are standards for a good and safe housing and this is small comfort for our families who have just been through tragedy. 

At this stage of rehabilitation, is it best to donate cash or in kind or facilitate programs on sustainable livelihood? The community should be part of planning durable solutions. There are costs which need to be paid in cash, like a single mother or households who need to pay in cash to obtain the services of a carpenter or other workers. In one case of a poor community, where the beneficiary selection for food items was based on criteria like existing government list of poor, a third were excluded but those excluded ended up receiving the package because those who received also shared what they got. After all, the entire community was affected by the storm and indeed, who will prevent them from sharing what they received by virtue of their being in the list of the poorest among the poor? Perhaps, Filipinos are naturally magnanimous or that after the super storm, who needs to hoard material things at the expense of those who could also need the same food? 

When super typhoon Yolanda struck, several international military personnel also offered civil military humanitarian services and they came in big aircraft carrier ships and they had to spend Christmas 2013 here in our country instead of in the comfort of their homes and loved ones. 

From all the international aid coming to our shores, there is great respect for engaging and honoring local social infrastructures at both national and barangay level line agencies. And for sure, there is a lot to learn from all these international humanitarian response to super storm Yolanda in the name of climate change adaptation which could benefit the entire humanity.

The Philippines is one such laboratory for humanitarian response and here is to hoping that we are learning large lessons very well in this era of changing climes.

                                            Isla de Cana, Carles, Iloilo
                                          

Resilience or Disaster Preparedness? 

A Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation & Recovery (PARR) or a reconstruction "Czar" was appointed & which will, among others, focus on mobilizing the private sector to play a part in the recovery process of the super storm Yolanda affected areas. The office of the PARR headed by Secretary Panfilo Lacson has been urged by various stakeholders to incorporate all current multidisciplinary state of knowledge and lessons on disaster preparedness. The proposed timetable of full implementation of Rehabilitation & Recovery of Yolanda areas program (RAY) in the 24 areas of intervention and development (AID) in the 171 affected cities and towns is by 2017 and with substantial completion by the end of President Aquino's term or on June 30, 2016. A Yolanda rehabilitation plan is in place as of October 2014. 

But, even before Yolanda struck, the eastern provinces of Leyte and Samar are already listed by the Philippine government as some of the poorest provinces of the country. So, any rebuilding should take into account the political economy, culture, understanding of patronage politics & resilient political dynasties and potential corruption. Already, charges of corruption has been leveled against the Department of Public Works & Highways which was later cleared by PARR Panfilo Lacson, but it was nevertheless determined that these bunkhouses in Tacloban did not conform to international standards such as safety, security & privacy, etc.

Also, many of these towns are located in the typhoon belt, and it is visited by typhoons regularly but not in the scale of Yolanda in recent memory. But, archived reports record super storms in the years 1898 and 1912 when thousands also perished. 

The PARR reports that there is inflation in Yolanda affected areas and the government's Department of Trade & Industry will deploy container warehouses and depots where communities can buy construction materials. For the fishing industry, the government will build processing plants for fish. 

The office of the PARR says said no new “bunkhouses,” meant to serve as transition shelters between evacuation centers and tents and permanent houses for the homeless survivors, would be built. Instead of bunkhouses, the homeless will be given money to rebuild their ruined homes even as they wait for permanent housing to be put up.  

At LGU levels, a local government’s land use plan looks at location of human settlements in relation to danger zones.  There are already local models for land use policies as required by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board’s (HLURB) Program, which aims to complete updating the CLUP of all local government units (LGUs). The HLURB has ordered the review of old Comprehensive Land Use Plans of local government units severely damaged by Typhoon Yolanda. The housing sector has already pushed for initiatives to include climate change response actions in national and local government land use policies.The HLURB is the national government agency primarily tasked with assisting LGUs in drawing up their CLUPs. In 2011, the HLURB began to require all LGUs to integrate climate change adaptation and disaster risk mitigation in their CLUPs.

But, the Philippine Congress has yet to legislate the proposed National Land Use Law that determines usage of land in relation to human habitation, agriculture & fisheries, urban and agrarian lands, business formation, social and physical infrastructures, vulnerable sectors, security, public works, and management of land resources in the context of sustainable development and climate change.  

The budget for a calamity fund at village,town, city or province levels is a measly 5% of total budget. A people’s survival fund is a proposed legislation which should be part of disaster preparedness.  

Project NOAH of the Philippine government can help with protecting communities through measures like installing early warning systems, upgrading weather forecasting equipment and tools for disaster risk reduction & management planning for villages.  So, local government units which prepare DRRM plans can learn from Project Noah. 

Let us question our so called "resilience" because it is limiting and not enough. Just because Filipinos can bounce back after weathering storms should not mean, we should suffer through with each disaster every time, as poor & vulnerable as ever. In this sense, preparedness and adaptation are the more preferred ways to go. In practical terms, this means that towns, cities and provinces must prepare social infrastructures such as DRRM plans, an updated Comprehensive Land Use Plans, capacity to read weather warning maps & tools and that the state of multidisciplinary knowledge on disaster preparedness and climate change adaptation are translated to national & local policies and programs for impact. 

The Philippines with its cohesive communities will have to strengthen existing local political and social systems, physical infrastructures, natural systems and defenses towards disaster preparedness and climate change adaptation.