LUCKY US here in Baguio, we’ve been spared much of the misfortune that compatriots elsewhere in the country have been having these past weeks. Except for the mudslide mishap that occurred right in the heart of downtown — which tragically took the life of 2 — it has been quite a safe Habagat month for us. Sure, any one month’s early demise is a sad demise anytime, for which we must have shared grief, especially if that was one mishap that could have been averted.
Two weather systems are presently on northwest course, in a brushing sweep of our archipelagic contours, and indeed it’s just the sea-bred monsoon weather that’s making life rather difficult in seacoast areas. Up here in our midst, the rains whipped up by Habagat have not been as ferocious as the torrents that lash the lowland areas. That said, it’s been touch and go in so far as weather watching is concerned.
Before the weather turns any worse for us living in the mountain tops and cradled by the valleys, let’s just be sure we’re ready just the same. Rather than learning new lessons the hard way, it’s about time we get to revisit our own disaster plans and check-mark how prepared are we. Are we in fact adapting to a world whose climate swings and natural events are happening rather harshly, punishingly if you will, as if in retribution for what we’ve been doing in the last centuries?
Past experiences indicate that typhoon victims are usually caught up in a maelstrom of landslides and flooding in areas expected to be stricken by cascading soil and debris. Accidents do happen when people are not forewarned enough, or are prone to ignore whatever alert notices have been given. Evidently, there’s more nonchalance than anxiety, and we see more people engulfed in the usual happenstance, than on survival, mood.
For us in Baguio, the closest we can relate to severe natural aberrations are the 1990 killer quake and the subsequent huge typhoons that have caused widespread damage not just on lives lost but on economic activities that ground to a halt from dislocated infrastructure systems. To this day, the decade of the nineties still presents a grim reminder of lessons learned and sadly, seemingly forgotten even with the passing of time.
When the earth let out a mighty heave on July 16, 1990, doomsday scenarios immediately loomed life-size as 26 seconds of roller-coasting movement rocked many of us down to our knees. Casualties by the thousands were record-high simply because buildings of recent vintage were erected on vulnerable mountain slopes and suddenly awakened fault-lines. Whose fault it was isn’t nature, but we simply looked the other way when these buildings were being erected.
To this belated day, we remember loved ones gone, but we forgot how better built structures could have saved more lives, if we had earlier been more adaptive to today’s climes. To this belated day, construction works have gone on frenziedly, characterized by the traditional shortcuts and without respect to geohazard risks. Even much taller structures have been allowed to rise in places where they shouldn’t have been. Permits have been issued mindlessly without regard to safety risks.
Today’s building policies should certainly focus on sustainability if we have to strive in keeping the adverse effects of climate change in check, at the very least. Green buildings will allow minimum energy consumption and reduce waste production. Newer technologies must be allowed for innovative ways in the use of properly screened building materials, lighting, ventilation, and other mechanisms that increase efficiency but are low in energy consumption. Indeed, it makes sense, in light of climate change, to shape our buildings responsibly and in accordance with what nature is now.
Somehow, in post-event analysis after the 1990 killer quake that hit Baguio, that makes sense. In today’s climes — when events of greater force and ferocity are taking place with impunity, when super weather afflictions quickly develop in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, when seemingly dormant volcanoes go in erratic mood swings, when mighty earthquakes heave out powerful jolts — that makes super sense. Too bad, we have quickly forgotten all about that, and by our inaction these recent years, we continue to surrender, in utter genuflection, to archaic architectural and engineering practices that ignore climate change-induced weather and geologic disturbances. Too bad that business as usual has been good for business, while being bad for the rest of us puny inhabitants of the only planetary home we have.
Clearly, in the aftermath of Harvey, Irma and Maria and during earlier times of Ondoy and Yolanda, and now of Habagat-induced weather events, life can never be as usual, completely unaffected by the new normal that climate change has bred. Natural disasters will always take place, intensifying each time they strike. Earthquakes will occur more frequently without warning and in greater ferocity. Typhoons will get stronger, lashing at wider areas than before.
True, nature has its own way to take its course, but we have the option not to allow inaction to breed from our own indifference. Leaders may come and go, but people is constant. There will always be victims among us. But we can opt not to be willing victims when natural disaster inflicts its deadly force on vulnerable communities. We can lend a voice to the global cry to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that have caused, for centuries now, much of the global warming that our planet has absorbed from our own economic activities. We can adapt our life to challenges, mitigate risks by our own adaptive ways, and be more resilient and better equipped when disaster strikes.
Are we doing enough to reduce our contributed carbon footprint through self-chosen activities that disengage us from our motor vehicles, even if a bit of a time each time? Are we pressuring our own leaders enough for them to be more serious in alternative energy use? Are they in fact setting iron-clad policies that veer away from coal-powered energy — the very culprit why too much carbon dioxide and other toxic gases are polluting the atmosphere, why our polar icecaps are melting, why our seas are getting warmer, why thed now normal weather aberrations quickly develop into signature catastrophic events?
Let us not wait for time to run us out. The reason is simple: time has long been up.
