The flooding that swallowed Villa del Rio, Bgy Bacayan in Cebu city and adjacent neighborhoods during Typhoon Tino is not a natural tragedy alone – it is a man-made moral catastrophe. Watching long-time, middle-class homeowners – people who poured their life savings into a house and a neighborhood they thought safe – but had to punch and climb onto rooftops to wait out a flood that rose to second floors. They witnessed the collapse of every promise given to them, safety, planning and the duty of the state and developers to protect them.
Villa del Rio’s horror – families stranded for hours on rooftops, cars shredded and piled like driftwood, dozens rescued and uncounted people feared swept away – should trigger more than pity. It should provoke national shame. These are not informal settlers who ‘chose’ risk; these are residents who invested decades in homes they believed to be secure. Many have lived in Villa del Rio for thirty years. They trusted that government, developers and local officials had learned the lessons of past calamities. Yet the water proved otherwise.
That failure echoes painfully with Provident Village in Marikina during Typhoon Ondoy in 2009. In that terrifying 20 minutes, middle-class streets turned into lahar-thick torrents. Two-story homes were inundated to ceiling heights. People scrambled to rooftops; many died – not only of drowning but of electrocution when floodwaters shorted household power. Provident Village was not a cautionary tale that changed our behavior; it became a precedent we have shamefully allowed to repeat.
If anything, Villa del Rio demonstrates that the lessons of Ondoy never really took hold. Stakeholders across the board in housing – national agencies like the DENR, NHA, developers who carve up uplands for profit, local governments that rubber-stamp subdivisions, and disaster managers who treat mitigation as an afterthought – have failed to act with the urgency and integrity demanded by repeated disasters. Rapid urbanization, deforestation of upland watersheds, cemented hillsides and narrowed waterways are not spontaneous; they are government policy choices and profit-driven decisions with predictable outcomes.
Let us be honest: this is negligence, carelessness not fate. When developers pave and sell mountain lots without adequate hydrological studies, when local regulators permit construction that destroys natural absorption and channelizes runoff, they are both engineering catastrophes. When the DENR allows watershed degradation to continue and LGUs permit settlements on riverbanks or fail to enforce setbacks, they are both to blame. When the emergency apparatus has no robust early-warning network, no reliable communications in upland barangays, and no automatic utility shutoffs to prevent electrocution, they are inviting mass injury and death.
Worse still, the rhetoric of ‘we warned them to transfer’ shifts all blame to victims who, after years of safe occupancy, trusted the system. It is an insult to suggest that middle-class families chose to risk their lives rather than heed evacuation notices. Many were unaware of the scale of the hazard because the hazard was created under their feet. The city told them to move – after developers sold them the illusion of permanence.
What must happen now is not ceremonial sympathy but decisive, structural action, Steps must be immediate, both short and long term and institutional. Promises that amount to ‘study committees’ and vague pledges of rehabilitation will not rebuild lives or restore trust. The lives lost and the households washed away are the result of predictable, preventable policies. They are not unavoidable acts of God but are the outcome of human decisions.
Villa del Rio and Provident Village floods are not anomalies – they are warnings. If the same stakeholders are allowed to continue business as usual, nothing will change the next time. The price of complacency will be measured again in broken families and bodies. What we need today is accountability, reform and the political will to place our citizens over profit. That choice must be made now.
From Tokhang to the Hague: Bato must answer
Whether or not the International Criminal Court has formally transmitted a warrant for the arrest of Senator Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa, the substance of the allegations and the long shadow of the Duterte drug war demand an uncompromising response and that is justice for the thousands killed must be the nation’s absolute priority.
Families of victims have lived in terror for years, not just sadness. Fear of punishment, which was spread on purpose by the people who built and ran the killing machine, made it difficult for too long to hold people accountable at home. This is exactly why the ICC probe was needed: when victims can’t safely seek justice at home, the world must step in.
According to reports, Kristina Conti, an ICC-accredited assistant to counsel, has made a key legal point: a transfer to the ICC is not a normal extradition between nations; it is a surrender of custody. The details are important because they show a basic truth: the ICC has ways to hold people accountable even when national systems have broken down or been used as weapons by those in power. No senator’s title, no political theater, and no procedural theater should be able to protect someone from being accused of committing a major atrocity.
Everybody knows that Ronald dela Rosa was the head of the Philippine National Police while Tokhang operations were at their peak, and official documents show that they were linked to hundreds of killings. Many families believe that the policies he implemented were based on and expanded the Davao Death Squad model across the country. Victims’ groups and civil society groups have consistently asked for his arrest and surrender if there is an ICC warrant. They are not looking for revenge, but for the same legal responsibility and truth-telling that every democracy must ensure.
At the same time, a commitment to justice must be based on the law. If there is a warrant, it should be checked and then handled according to the Constitution and any relevant international responsibilities. However, ‘due process’ should not be used as an excuse to avoid or delay accountability forever. People who say that the ICC can’t issue further warrants or that reports are just ‘tea-leaf reading’ or ‘pure fiction’ can’t drown out the victims’ requests. The Senate also cannot be made a haven for people who are credibly accused of crimes against humanity.
The Department of Justice, the Office of the Solicitor General, and the Senate leadership are all facing a test of principle. Will they uphold the rule of law and the rights of victims, or will they give in to political pressure and protect those who are accused? The Marcos administration’s support for Duterte’s move to The Hague should set a good example: if the court processes require surrender, the Republic must comply. Being stubborn or dragging their feet would only make things worse for the families who are still looking for closure.
Finally, justice is broader than arrest warrants. The state must guarantee witness protection, support for survivors and families, transparent investigations, and reparations. It must reform policing and dismantle the structures that enabled extrajudicial killings. The moral and legal obligation is clear: accountability for the past is the foundation for a safer, more just future.
If the ICC issues a warrant for Senator ‘Bato’ dela Rosa, it must be taken upon without delay, with full respect to all required legal procedures, but also with unswerving attention on the victims whose lives were ruined.
The Philippines cannot heal while real or perceived impunity endures. Justice for the thousands killed in the drug war is not negotiable; it is non-negotiable.