Mother Nature is angry and has declared that it’s payback time. We have abused our forests, rivers, lakes and seas for much too long. Our environment has been repeatedly raped. Now we are suffering the consequences.
The shameless greed of our powerful elite caused this mindless despoliation of our natural resources. They disregarded the national interest and the needs of future generations.
Our government, weak and held captive by the elite, allowed massive deforestation. Rivers and lakes were polluted beyond belief by domestic and industrial wastes. Mountains and hills were stripped of their forest cover and some were leveled to make way for land development.
The World Bank, in a 2009 paper, indicated that the annual deforestation rate during the 1935-70 period, and then 1971-91, were particularly high. About 181,000 hectares/year were also lost during 1971-91. Over the last eight decades, we lost about 60-70 percent of our forest cover.
The bulk of the loss occurred during the logging boom years (1960s-80s) and through land conversion. Loggers with strong political clout made a lot of money with no regard to long term impact on the country’s future.
Worse, we don’t even have a National Land Use Law to guide what could be done. Instead, property developers and owners do whatever they want. Congress had been trying to pass such a law since the 1990s but the lobby against it was too strong.
What we have is a colossal national mess, a free-for-all system that has reduced our country to a massive garbage dump. Mother Nature has had enough. We must be taught our lesson, exactly what the destructive typhoons are teaching us.
Briefly, this is our problem:
Heavy rainfall that more frequently occurs in this era of climate change is causing greater runoff because vegetation or forests that normally absorb it are gone. Water reaches rivers faster.
The capacity of rivers and their tributaries to drain rainwater have been reduced due to sedimentation, blocked waterways and structures built in floodplains.
Allowing residential subdivisions and the building of commercial buildings or infrastructure in flood-prone zones, steep slopes, or on former natural floodplains, increases exposure to killer floods and landslides.
Says one policy source: “Private property rights are extremely strong… Current safety zones only need to measure three meters in cities and 20 meters in rural areas. However, these are often completely insufficient.”
Whatever little land use planning we have is fragmented and poorly enforced. Allowing deforestation, quarrying and construction upstream usually fails to consider downstream flood risk impact. An unusually heavy downpour results in massive losses.
The compounding effect: multiple small degradations (forest loss, paving, blocked drains) together greatly amplify risk, turning what might have been a “manageable” flood into a deadly one.
Conversion of forests/brushland to agriculture, cropland or built surfaces increases flood exposure. Slash-and-burn (kaingin) practices by landless farmers have also been a problem. It is claimed that in Cebu, only around one percent of its land area remains forested.
Urbanization also poses problems: when large surfaces are paved (roads, buildings, subdivisions), rainwater cannot be absorbed by the ground and so becomes run-off very rapidly.
Urbanization also leads to obstruction of natural drainage, alteration of waterways, and more intense peak flows. This is why Metro Manila gets easily flooded.
Many waterways (rivers, esteros, canals) have been narrowed, obstructed by illegal structures or filled in, limiting their capacity to carry floodwaters. Backfilling disrupts water flow, contributing to flooding.
Improper disposal of solid waste (plastic and other debris) blocks drainage. This is why San Miguel’s river clean-up activities are doing more good than expensive flood control projects of DPWH, many of which are even ghost projects.
Marikina River’s clean-up involved politically difficult decisions: moving the squatters and recovering the lost original width of the river. They also established proper easement along the river banks by moving squatters and demolishing illegal structures.
A UP policy brief mentions: “Allowing human settlements on the fringes has obliterated local drainage channels.”
A key problem is that land use plans are often localized, disjointed or not integrated with flood risk or river basin management. Coordinating land use planning at the regional level and the integration of flood mitigation programs for the 18 major river basins nationwide is necessary to address flooding problems.
Science and Technology Secretary Renato Solidum, Jr. said during a congressional budget briefing that the government should tie the various land use programs of each local government unit into a consolidated regional plan as part of efforts to address chronic nationwide flooding.
There are hazard maps to guide government decision makers in dealing with development in dangerous areas. But these important inputs are not appreciated by politicians. Duterte refused to provide a budget for NOAH, putting its treasure trove of data and maps at risk. It was saved by the University of the Philippines, making it its Resilience Institute.
Massive losses in lives and property could have been avoided if officials used the hazard maps painstakingly prepared by geologists and other technical personnel.
But there are positive stories like Iloilo’s flood control project. The Jaro Floodway, completed in 2011 through the partnership of JICA, DPWH, NHA and the Iloilo City Government, stands as living proof that politics and good infrastructure can co-exist.
What made the Iloilo floodway infrastructure a success according to Dr. Herman Lagon is also a willingness to learn from the river rather than control it. “Engineers shaped bends, planted mangroves and let gravity do what pumps could not. It was engineering that respected ecology.”
The late DENR secretary Gina Lopez summed up our problem well:
“The time will come when we will be held accountable for destroying our natural resources. The time will come when we will feel the wrath of nature’s revenge because of our neglect and disrespect for the mountains and the trees.”
So today, Mother Nature is saying, it’s payback time! Suffer the consequences of the decades of abuse.
Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco
