Disaster coordination

The NDCC traces its roots back to the early years of civil emergency in 1941 and with the nuclear arms race in the 1960s, other policies emerged. Only with Typhoon Sening that hit Bicol in October 1970 and left Manila flooded for three months did a new chapter in rescue and recovery begin. From then until 1978 there was much reorganization and formulation of the NDCC and programming of community disaster preparedness.

Since January 2004, the NDCC's "Four Point Action Plan for Disaster Preparedness" did not have the resources and the time to get off of the ground before the major disaster in November of that year. The action plan focuses on the:

• Upgrading of PAGASA and PHIVOLCS⁴ forecasting capabilities
• Public information campaign on disaster preparedness
• Capacity building for local government units in identified vulnerable areas
• Mechanisms for government and private sector partnership in relief and rehabilitation.

There is an unqualified need to build capacity at all levels and to increase the coordination. There is also a critical need for comprehensive area studies to understand the geological, hydrological and fluvial geomorphologic impact of such disasters before major engineering responses are made. Serious revisions of infrastructure need to be undertaken in many areas of the country where construction clearly does not meet the standards set by 100-year events. These responses with the inclusion of other related government departments and international technical and financial assistance are essential in these major and specific undertakings.

Call for a Social Contract

The social contract is an effort to address the human insecurity in its totality. The future of towns such as Infanta, Real, General Nakar, Gabaldon, Dingalan, and other Philippine towns that experienced flooding and landslide disasters - and still will - depends upon the social contract struck. The now understood level of scientific and social awareness of the problems must incorporate the knowledge that nature sets her terms and limits. This recognition and acceptance of nature's terms must be the basis for all stakeholders to work out a social contract and develop the needed partnerships.

The present social contract is focusing on five areas:

• Getting people out of high risk areas
• Cleaning up waterways, the access to these waterways, and dealing with the new contours of the land and drainage
• Creating livelihood for the poor in ways that do not degrade the environment
• Taking legal action where necessary against those who wilfully transgress present laws for their own personal benefit
• Giving greater support to local government from the national, and to the participation by local people and organizations in governance.

All of these responses beckon a greater need for changes in attitudes and behaviour towards the environment that is better informed by an understanding that nature sets its terms and limits. We interact and negotiate by studying environmental forces over time and measure the risks so as to gain greater security with nature in how we live and work. This applies to the most marginal of people and local economies where national society has the responsibility to at least secure the basic needs of housing and access to livelihood for its people. These terms and limits form the basis of the social contract we need to work out. It is a social contract that will embody the lessons learnt from previous disasters and the needed changes in attitude and behaviour towards cutting of forests, livelihood identification, allocation of land for housing especially for the poor, and in the clearing up of waterways and the maintenance required.

With the recent disaster, many of the responses are drawn from the participation of local people by local government during the post disaster period. The response of many housing efforts is getting people out of high-risk areas to new housing. the de-silting of riverbeds is getting attention. There are current efforts in instituting community-based early warning systems, securing path networks for evacuation to higher-ground and refuge areas. There are programs to reconstruct and support fishing, farming and forest use based livelihoods. Infrastructure re-development is under way, stabilization of slopes and replanting, using the knowledge obtained from on-going studies of the physical landscape and waterways, discussed and well-formulated hazard mapping, and rationalizing land re-allocation in land use planning and management. To ensure accomplishments and success in these efforts, there is also the recognition of needed partnerships with those stakeholders who will benefit from a safe and maintained environment to live in and work on, and not just the local government and responsible line agencies in national government.

The high-risk settlements mostly involve poor people who have no other places to live; many people are just being relocated on dry riverbeds are areas that suffered during previous folds. Until we deal with this poor population and stop leaving them in flood lands, we will always have the problem.

Everything must be done to keep waterways clear, not only for the development of the drainage system, but also the access to that drainage system. Efforts are to clear not just the sandbars and flood zones of settlements, but the banks (pampang) as well. There is a need for settlements to be moved away from the banks and to face the reality of keeping the banks clear for maintenance access. It is unrealistic to expect to have significantly large human settlements, of mainly the poor, in areas adjoining slope lands without having the forests destroyed or degraded. The increases in the price of bottled kerosene (ga-as) particularly in 2004 saw the resurgence in the production of charcoal for local consumption, as well as the Manila barbecue (inihaw) market. Very few societies in Asia have learnt to sustain poor populations so that their basic needs are met without infringing on the forest cover and having first lost it. Most governments are not willing either to trust or to endow communities with rights over good forest cover and effectively engage in markets. Where communities are granted access to forest lands, these are usually of no commercial value and these communities are only able to meet subsistence needs with little greater security in life, and so the forest may continue to degrade. There is limited successful management that can clearly show the sustainability of the forest by communities unless there is alleviation of critical poverty by securing basic services and or an actual pattern of out-migration.

Social trust and commitment are seriously undermined by the continuing reports that cutting of trees, not debris, is ongoing in the watersheds. That some business interests and local government officials facilitate the movement of such wood through checks and roadblocks is a sad reflection on the degradation of local society. It involves local people who "everybody knows" and who have protection or power yet refuse to find a new way to do legitimate business.

Given that the Philippines is an island complex with mountains that we know at this stage are not well-managed, the argument does hold sway as to whether there should be logging, because no matter how effective we are in creating policies, we have lost the capacity in implementing these policies. Traditional politics does not allow the country to sustainably utilize its resources. There is also a problem of not being able to locate a growing population to where there are the needed advantages allowing for a change of circumstance. Where there is improvement, the migrants will follow who quickly fill in the poverty ranks and human insecurity is "re-lived." Resource area management in the Philippines always has the problem of an ever-present scavenging class.

The challenges are enormous and require immense social changes in all of Philippine society. We have many tragic experiences and painful lessons to determine the non-negotiables and move forward knowing there is much that we can do.