*This is my second paper for my Journalism 103 (opinion writing) class.
Metro Manila is a mess. Roads are congested. Piles of garbage line its streets and fill its waterways. The city reeks of its own filth.
And that was before tropical storm “Ondoy” came.
On the day that over 400 millimeters of rain came pouring from the sky, the mess became a catastrophe. What we left mismanaged and damaged came back to haunt us all.
We stared in awe at the sheer volume of the rising flood waters and asked where all that water came from, knowing all too well that the denuded mountains and hills in the distance held the answer.
We watched helplessly as the homes, factories, and shopping centers of a poorly – if at all – planned metropolis sank in the middle of natural flood plains between the Marikina and Pasig rivers.
We waited desperately for help to come in the midst of the storm, only to be frustrated by news of rescue teams blocked by congested roads and suffering from a lack of equipment.
When the rain finally stopped we picked through huge piles of garbage. Our own trash, disgorged by the very waterways we turned into latrines, plus the debris from all the destroyed buildings and the mud and silt from the mountains, covered all the streets.
Metro Manila is a mess. Roads are congested. Piles of garbage line its streets and fill its waterways. The city reeks of its own filth.
This is after tropical storm “Ondoy” left.
In the days after the storm, thousands of volunteers picked up the pieces and gave food and supplies to those ravaged by the floods. Unfortunately, such a picture of one nation and one people engaged in bayanihan was not meant to last.
That fleeting moment of national unity was quickly overshadowed by politicians, personalities, and people all pointing fingers and blaming each other for the disaster that brought the capital to its knees.
Critics slammed the national government’s feeble disaster-response capability, even though the blocked roads prevented the rescue teams from getting to where they were needed most.
They scored the weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), for not warning the people about the amount of rain brought by “Ondoy”, even though the tools for doing so were not available.
They blamed the managers of the metropolis’ drainage system for not opening the pumps out of the city, even though doing so would have entailed pumping water into already full rivers.
But these critics need not look far for those who are ultimately to blame for last month’s deluge. They only have to look in front of them, behind them, beside them, around them, within them, for the cause of the disaster.
Yes. We are all to blame.
Our mad rush to build a city caused us to irresponsibly put houses and infrastructure in hazardous areas. Urban planning took a back seat to profit-making.
Our disregard for proper waste management filled our drains, our creeks, and our rivers with garbage that so congested the waterways that the water had nowhere to go but into our living rooms.
Our disrespect for the law led us to tolerate squatters who blocked the main drainage channels out of the city and added to the congestion of our waterways.
Our greed led us to strip the mountains bare of trees and plants, leaving our watersheds without any cover at all from the rains.
Our ignorance kept us from preparing for the inevitable, with money going into worthless endeavors such as junkets abroad instead of proper disaster response equipment, adequate warning systems, and Doppler radars which could have warned us of the amount of rain brought by “Ondoy”.
At the end of it all, we are left with what we have sown.
Now, let us plant new seeds in the mud left by this disaster. Let us learn from our mistakes, and not repeat them in the future, lest we suffer another “Ondoy”.
Metro Manila is a mess. Roads are congested. Piles of garbage line its streets and fill its waterways. The city reeks of its own filth.
And that was before tropical storm “Ondoy” came.
On the day that over 400 millimeters of rain came pouring from the sky, the mess became a catastrophe. What we left mismanaged and damaged came back to haunt us all.
We stared in awe at the sheer volume of the rising flood waters and asked where all that water came from, knowing all too well that the denuded mountains and hills in the distance held the answer.
We watched helplessly as the homes, factories, and shopping centers of a poorly – if at all – planned metropolis sank in the middle of natural flood plains between the Marikina and Pasig rivers.
We waited desperately for help to come in the midst of the storm, only to be frustrated by news of rescue teams blocked by congested roads and suffering from a lack of equipment.
When the rain finally stopped we picked through huge piles of garbage. Our own trash, disgorged by the very waterways we turned into latrines, plus the debris from all the destroyed buildings and the mud and silt from the mountains, covered all the streets.
Metro Manila is a mess. Roads are congested. Piles of garbage line its streets and fill its waterways. The city reeks of its own filth.
This is after tropical storm “Ondoy” left.
In the days after the storm, thousands of volunteers picked up the pieces and gave food and supplies to those ravaged by the floods. Unfortunately, such a picture of one nation and one people engaged in bayanihan was not meant to last.
That fleeting moment of national unity was quickly overshadowed by politicians, personalities, and people all pointing fingers and blaming each other for the disaster that brought the capital to its knees.
Critics slammed the national government’s feeble disaster-response capability, even though the blocked roads prevented the rescue teams from getting to where they were needed most.
They scored the weather bureau, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), for not warning the people about the amount of rain brought by “Ondoy”, even though the tools for doing so were not available.
They blamed the managers of the metropolis’ drainage system for not opening the pumps out of the city, even though doing so would have entailed pumping water into already full rivers.
But these critics need not look far for those who are ultimately to blame for last month’s deluge. They only have to look in front of them, behind them, beside them, around them, within them, for the cause of the disaster.
Yes. We are all to blame.
Our mad rush to build a city caused us to irresponsibly put houses and infrastructure in hazardous areas. Urban planning took a back seat to profit-making.
Our disregard for proper waste management filled our drains, our creeks, and our rivers with garbage that so congested the waterways that the water had nowhere to go but into our living rooms.
Our disrespect for the law led us to tolerate squatters who blocked the main drainage channels out of the city and added to the congestion of our waterways.
Our greed led us to strip the mountains bare of trees and plants, leaving our watersheds without any cover at all from the rains.
Our ignorance kept us from preparing for the inevitable, with money going into worthless endeavors such as junkets abroad instead of proper disaster response equipment, adequate warning systems, and Doppler radars which could have warned us of the amount of rain brought by “Ondoy”.
At the end of it all, we are left with what we have sown.
Now, let us plant new seeds in the mud left by this disaster. Let us learn from our mistakes, and not repeat them in the future, lest we suffer another “Ondoy”.
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