In the aftermath of super typhoon Yolanda

 By: dodong.

The vulnerable provinces of typhoon will have to build better evacuation centers, much safer and sturdier and farther from the coastal areas where storm surges would not be able to reach them. Land use plans as basis for urban built-up development should be reconfigured to factor in storm surges, flash flooding and lost ecological balances that already imperil the inhabitants. Our local government units should now reconsidered their present building codes and ensure that new infrastructure strictly adhere to building codes and zonal regulations. No more substandard stuff, generally the result of rigged contracts and kickbacks. A dense population crammed into a poorly-planned habitat near the seashore or usually in the shoreline of every coastal towns and light materials used in shanties are immensely complicating the task of the government in ensuring safety of its people in the event of another super typhoon.  All devastated places in the recent calamity should undergo reconstruction sooner, the practice must be changed and this should no longer be on the paradigm of purely economic and social gain that saw the haphazard building of infrastructure and facilities from the latest ruins but with a long term plan defense and projection that can withstand the future strong earthquake and typhoon.

While the arrival of Yolanda was anticipated its overwhelming dimensions were not and it may yet go down in history as the most powerful storm to make landfall ever recorded. Typhoons Yolanda, Sendong, Pablo are one type of calamity and its unprecedented devastation of lives and properties introduced the country to a new global reality where environmental issues can no longer be ignored. The problem of climate change that affect our lives due to the modifications of weather should be addressed seriously, not that blithely and only those projects being glossed over by government and business firms in the rush where they can provide public platforms for profit-hungry politicians and their cohort individual enterprises, but rather will set a plan for a proactive solutions to counter these apocalyptic catastrophes visiting our country and imperatively it should now occupy prime place in development policy making. 

I hope that the government and majority of us will now learn and move on to the next step of mindset for the sake of the victims and our country to be security conscious. Disaster preparedness planning literature emphasizes that the effectiveness of a disaster plan can be tested only through actual disasters and that is why disaster preparedness plan should always be evaluated, revised and updated after every disaster. As shown by the preventive and preparation measures also suggested by other well-meaning individual and from other sectors of our society, I push the above ideas. Will the government and the people do it right this time and start a proactive preventive solutions rather than reactive? God bless us all.