In page 14 of the October 4 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, my letter to the editor (based on this rather long blog of mine), sent during the (electricity-less) weekend after Typhoon Milenyo hit:
Can’t we avoid tragedies caused by typhoons?
IT DOESN’T take a genius to know that at least once a year, we will be hit by a tropical storm so strong it’s going to cause disasters and power outages in various places around the country.
Take Bicol, for example. In 1988, the region was hit by a storm that was so forceful the whole area went without electricity for months. In 1993, Typhoon “Sisang” hit Bicol and the region had no power for two weeks. After Typhoon “Milenyo,” Bicol might spend another Christmas in darkness. The reason for all these? Toppled power lines. Were these fixed in the past? Yes. Was something done to prevent similar episodes from happening? No.
So each time a powerful typhoon blows across our region, my fellow Bicolanos hear the same old refrains: “Be patient; don’t complain; everyone else doesn’t have electricity; you’re better off, because at least you have a roof over your head; prayer and national solidarity will get us through this crisis.”
Give me a break.
Patience, they say, is a virtue. In our case, however, it is a virtue that has been abused, time and again, by idiots who claim to be the best leaders we can have. Natural calamities have become so commonplace in this country you’d think by now we’d know what to do to cushion their impact.
When will enough be enough? How many people have to die, how many Filipinos have to lose their homes, how many floods do we have to put up with, how many “power-less” days must we live through before something is really done to prevent these from happening?
“An ounce of prevention,” the saying goes, “is worth a pound of cure.” It’s a lesson that our leaders, apparently, have yet to learn.
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