A DELUGE OF FEEDBACK: TO DO LIST
ADDRESSING THE ONDOY DISASTER
[PHOTO
AT LEFT - Kuala Lumpur canals and drainage ways are kept immaculately free of
debris and garbage.]
MANILA, OCTOBER 11, 2009, (STAR) CITY SENSE By Paulo Alcazaren - I got the most e-mail feedback in years from my column last week, “Lessons from the deluge.” This week we look at a sampling of these, along with snippets from a forum held Wednesday morning at the Ateneo de Manila organized by the Philippine Institute of Environmental Planners and the Ateneo School of Governance.
It has been two weeks since Ondoy struck and many areas in and outside of Metro Manila are still flooded, with many survivors still not getting relief and attention. Typhoon Pepeng up north has still to make obvious the destruction and despair it has wrought.
The first e-mail is from Professor G. Lee from the department of Accounting
and Finance, College of Business Administration, UP: “Hi, I read your article
published in The Philippine STAR today I just wanted to tell you that it’s a
good, well-written, and informative article. It was nice how you elaborated on
the oft-mentioned issue of urban planning … I personally agree with your
observation regarding the lack of political will and unity in this country to
make things happen. Here’s hoping that the long road towards better urban
planning and infrastructure development in the country will begin immediately.”
Next is an e-mail from M. Oliva from Davao City, who said, “I was in Singapore for a vacation last year … unfortunately, when I came home we started experiencing flooding in the main streets of (Davao), which never happened before. A week after that Mayor Rodrigo Duterte announced in his weekly program that he would start relocating the (informal settlers) who blocked the drainage of the city. Every day, he personally went to talk to the squatters to explain why their houses had to be demolished.” Oliva reported, “The squatters did not protest; instead they initiated the demolition of their houses and left before the demolition team came. Of course they were given money by the city government and a decent place to move to … the mayor of our city — he has the political will. If you do not follow his orders (which is often a request, kunyari), sorry…
“One of the areas demolished by the mayor was Nograles Park, which happened to be located on top of a major drainage that needed to be dredged and cleaned because of the garbage that clogged the waterway. After the cleaning and dredging, part of the flooding problem was solved, to a great extent, although there are still areas that experience flash floods during very heavy rains. We need leaders who do things for the greater good and not what makes them feel good.”
A. Ramos, a high school classmate I had not heard from in a while, wrote, “Thank you very much for the insight. I lived in Singapore from 1985 to 1989 and am very impressed with the huge open canals, in particular I remember the one in Kallang and also along Bukit Timah … the Philippine leadership is indeed dysfunctional. It boils down to the individual person. The Bible says that the heart is deceitful. There is gargantuan work that needs to be done and it would have to be an individual person’s change of heart. If there are enough people who change their ways and that approaches critical mass to significantly change Philippine society, there is hope.”
Yes,
Mr. Ramos, there is hope, but only if we start acting tomorrow.
The next e-mail came from my planning professor, Dr. Arturo Corpuz (also of the UP, from the School of Urban and Regional Planning), who sent me two papers he had presented in the early 1990s that set out the need for a “cohesive set of strategic planning principles, particularly from a local (Philippine) planning point of view.” Dr. Corpuz, who was a professor of planning at Cornell before he moved back to the Philippines, also noted that “urban and land use planning have key limitations when it comes to disaster mitigation ... then, as now, the technical factors are fairly straightforward (although they might be difficult to implement) — even at that time it was more or less clear what these would entail. The institutional aspects, however, are more formidable — a number of negative effects of the local government code.”
He also noted that the “responses to last week’s flood have been mostly regulatory in nature … nobody has talked about the details of population movements or their economic drivers. These are critical and appear to have been largely ignored. After all, the only difference between a flood and a disaster is that there are a lot of people and economic activities involved in the latter.”
Corpuz continued, “A regulatory perspective is also prone to look at only one side of the private sector and ignore its key role in metro development … Successfully rebuilding the infrastructure and establishing new regulatory frameworks and institutions will require the active role of the private sector. And unless something drastic (politically) happens, this means that in order for this infrastructure to be built and the frameworks and institutions to work, they will have to be consistent with private sector business models (formal and informal).”
Professor Corpuz’s papers clarified issues that became very important in light of the disasters of the early ’90s (earthquakes and volcanic eruptions). A number of these issues came to light again and were raised in the forum I mentioned earlier and from which I cull later in this column.
From German expat Joachim T., living in the Visayas: “Congratulations for having so much guts in writing such a wonderful article … hopefully for some responsible people it will provide eye-opening facts … also, I myself know almost all of Asia since I’ve worked here for almost 50 years already … I still also remember the Philippines like you when it was perhaps the best country in Southeast Asia! Well, to come back to the ‘deluge,’ I also would like to add herewith the idea of flood control, which has very recently been built and successfully implemented in Kuala Lumpur.”
Thanks, Joachim. Yes, I meant to also cite Kuala Lumpur’s efficient city
drainage system, too. In the ’80s and ’90s I frequented the city for projects
and noticed that canals there, like Singapore, were well-maintained and
ubiquitous. Increased urbanization has since raised the incidence of flash
floods, so the government made a bold move in implementing a radical
intervention that took into account the high density of building in the city
center. The Malaysians adopted a multi-pronged approach that involved retention
reservoirs, additional drainage canals and the Stormwater Management and Road
Tunnel or SMART Tunnel. This is a combined storm drainage and road tunnel that
is so radical it’s scary … but it was built, is open now and it works! The
combo-tunnel is close to 10 kilometers. When flooding is light, the bottom
section lets storm water through; when flooding is heavy, the road portion is
closed to traffic and the whole tunnel is used to let storm water through.
Of course, I’d be hesitant to suggest anything like that here … that is, until we can get the concept of maintenance into the vocabulary of those in government tasked with keeping our infrastructure in order. (Plus, the kickbacks in this enormously expensive project would make ZTE look like tong paid for a traffic infraction.)
There were more e-mails but we need to highlight the important forum mentioned above. The venue was filled with planners, architects landscape architects, NGO representatives and media. Five panelists gave short spiels contributing to spelling out where we where, where we are and where we could be vis-à-vis disaster risk reduction and city and regional planning.
The panel was made up of planners Nathaniel “Dinky” von Einsiedel, Dr. Ernie Serrote, Anna Maria Gonzalez, Teddy Encarnacion, environmentalist Lilia Casanova and Atty. Eunice Cruz of the Ateneo School of Governance.
Von Einsiedel explained the geo-morphological context of the floods. Dr. Serrote noted that disaster management is reactive and should instead be proactive, discussing DRR or disaster risk management as a tool for local land-use planning. Planner Anna Gonzalez emphasized the need to plan with nature and plan with people to find sustainable directions for building communities. Casanova clearly delineated a program to produce a 50-year integrated comprehensive plan for the mega-city of Metro Manila based on disaster scenarios, including a study recently prepared that showed that if an intensity-7 earthquake would hit the metropolis, then up to 16,000 buildings would be damaged and fatalities would start at 150,000 or more. Atty Eunice informed the audience of the DRRM — the Disaster Risk Reduction Management — Bill.
I hope to write at length next week on this forum, but in the meantime I reprint below a proposed “to do” list prepared by architect Einsiedel to address the Ondoy disaster:
1. Immediate preparation of a Sub-Regional Structure Plan (covering the areas of Markina, Pasig, Pateros, Taguig, and portions of Cainta and Taytay) to guide future government policy towards urban development in the area. This structure plan should indicate the desirable pattern of urban growth
and preferred dominant land uses for at least the next decade.
2. Strengthen the coordination mechanism between government agencies MMDA, HLURB (Housing Land Use Regulatory Board, LLDA (Laguna Lake Development Authority), and local authorities concerned in the enforcement of urban development controls.
3. Local authorities should initiate public-private participation in the formulation of local area plans for communities situated within flood-prone areas.
4. National government should immediately issue a directive disallowing any expansion of settlements and roads in flood-prone areas.
5. Local authorities, in cooperation with HUDCC and its attached agencies, should immediately formulate shelter plans, particularly for low-income households. These plans should include on-site upgrading of depressed communities, sites-and-services projects for self-help housing, and estimation of land requirements for future low-cost shelter projects.
6. HUDCC should immediately issue a directive enforcing the 20-percent balanced housing requirement within urban areas.
7. Local authorities and HLURB should immediately review current Comprehensive Land Use Plans (CLUPs) and Zoning Ordinances, and revise these accordingly to mitigate the adverse effects of future floods.
8. Local authorities should carefully review all new subdivision applications in terms of drainage and flood-control implications, and to confer with DPWH and LLDA if necessary.
9. Local authorities should increase fines for violations of zoning ordinances and building regulations.
10. The HLURB should immediately review and amend current subdivision design
standards, particularly the 30 percent open-space requirement, since proposed subdivisions in flood-prone areas and/or adjacent to waterways may require more open space for flood mitigation purposes.
11. National government should study the possible revival of the Regional Cities Development Program, which was aimed as developing counter-magnets to Metro Manila. This study should explore the feasibility of prioritizing current and new investment incentives provided by BOI, DTI, PEZA, PRA, etc., as well as the housing loan programs of Pag-Ibig, to these cities.
To these 11 I add (as others have already proposed, and some already initiated) mapping and technically recording the actual damage wrought by the floods, measuring its scope and reach, overlaying these against hazard maps already prepared (but never used by government agencies to their full utility) by institutions like the Manila Observatory, and assessing all these in a timeline- and geographic information system-based format to serve as the basis for future planning.
Since the forum was focused on urban planning and risk management — the elephants in the room — population management and the rationalization of the fractured governance of Metro Manila were two issues only mentioned in passing. In the run-up to next year’s elections, action on these issues, along with that of “removing” or moving informal settlers from hazard zones (which was discussed), may never see the light of day.
And oh, yes (and I do sadly have to point out this painful possibility), when Pacquiao gets into the ring with Cotto in November — and most likely wins — Ondoy will be forgotten and by Christmas many of the river easements and the Manggahan floodway will probably be resettled.