Upper San Pedro was a village unaffected by Severe Tropical Storm Nalgae/Paeng. Lower San Pedro, however, has grappled with the roll and pitch of Paeng: standing with your heels in vain as flooding stuns streams, streets, and shelters.
There is a predominant concern that we, in the communication studies, can redefine here: The two types of villagers in the City of San Pedro, Laguna – more commonly known as taga-bundok/itaas and taga-ibaba — have been promoting some sort of foolish pride (e.g., “We are the proud taga-bundok in times like this (when flooding does not and cannot reach us)” and “We’ll be back home weeks after this storm.”
Both appalling
It is good to note, though, that the ones who carried their foolish pride while managing their “better” presence online need a lot of rebukes, chief of which is their moral responsibility to check whether their wastes do not go down streams, ravaging low-lying residents of Elvinda Putol in Barangay San Antonio and in most parts of Barangays Cuyab, Sto. Niño, San Roque, Poblacion, and Landayan.
The evacuation centers the city maintained during the crucial hours of Paeng can be found not just in the low barangays, but also in upper San Pedro. Evacuees were in Estrella – Barangay Hall, Landayan – Landayan Evacuation Center, San Roque – San Roque Elementary School, Rosario – Rosario Evacuation Center, GSIS Homeowners Association (HOA), UB LRCS, and Central Poblacion.
It is time local government units earnestly oversaw people in the high ground. Make that higher ground or principled ground for they are reasonably expected to respond to the call for help from those in the flood-prone areas before, during and after flooding. Paeng should prompt LGU officials to stand behind the families displaced permanently or temporarily by this and other calamities.
As for taking the lead and providing essential infrastructure programs and projects meant for flood control in San Pedro and other cities and municipalities in the country, these should go side by side with more serious regional development policies. If we are truly committed to finding ways to peg a 90 to 95 percent disaster (i.e., floods brought about by monsoon rains, cyclone, “bagyo”, etc.) risk reduction and control of floods that have to be endured by lower San Pedro residents, for instance, ours should be one that has a whole regional (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, and Quezon or CALABARZON) approach to that development policy where LGU officials, especially those coming from Laguna and Cavite provincial governments work doubly hard and “hand in hand” (FAO, 2019). As soon as PAGASA weather bulletins anticipated the need to disseminate its General Flood Advisory, officials should equally expect and pinpoint which areas may experience a range of gutter-deep and “lagpas-tao” floods.
In the case of Paeng in the last 36 hours, there was a “General Flood Advisory (Extreme)” in red marks if one googled the affected areas. Its “General info” identified Region 4-A (CALABARZON) as the one facing that “extreme.” Well and good. Plus, the up-to-the-minute advisories right there in our cellphone inboxes. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating which means that we should ask ourselves, “Have we tried in the 36-hour span the taste of our methodical preparations for Paeng?” Credit goes to methodical, active, ever-present police work. Fortunately, or unfortunately, it really was a police work police work courtesy of the City Police Station (CPS) of San Pedro. Their seminars on Preparedness, Search & Rescue, and Relief Operations did not come to naught. They were backed up by some barangay councilmen and women and bystanders.
But then, we needed (and still do) a lot of coordination of the purported action men and women in every city hall and capitol.
The Tunasan-Cuyab River is a river system that starts up in Dasmariñas, Cavite and ends nine kilometers down to the Muntinlupa City-San Pedro City boundary. The Laguna Lake (Laguna de Bay) has the Tunasan-Cuyab River and 20 other major tributaries. Its system has six adjoining creeks, one of which is the San Isidro River in Elvinda Putol, Cuyab riskily passed over in the late afternoon of October 29.
My journalist-father Rene (not sure when he will resume his Meron at Miron column at Tutubi.ph; he is in the hospital due to a stroke) once told me that he did not know why the depths of the rivers in the city are on the average of two meters or less since he said that he knew better, having used and bathed in those rivers more than a hundred times in his seven decades here on earth. Wait, our population grew exponentially. It brings us to this recurring problem of underdevelopment of the old town. Tatay Rene later said, “I was lost in the actual figures and the tons of garbage the relatively new ‘city’ collects on weekly and monthly averages.” What the residents near the rivers do know are the rotten smell of these and the underlying diseases as inhabitants of the flood-prone (“bahain”) areas with a smile on their faces and with an improving resilience which, unfortunately, has ambiguous Filipino concepts (“katatagan” kung saan at paano).A few months ago, residents’ water faucets supplied brownish water. What was worse in the last 36 hours? Paeng has left the country, but water, lack of water, that “water everywhere” during rainy and stormy seasons, and wastes are not about to go. Yes, we are the go-to, action men and women in our low and high places. But more decent and more disciplined highlanders, please.
DC Alviar
Professor DC Alviar serves as a member of the steering committee of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO). He was part of National University’s community extension project that imparted the five disciplines of a learning organization (Senge, 1990) to communities in a local government unit. He writes and edits local reports for Mega Scene. He graduated with a master’s degree in development communication from the University of the Philippines Open University in Los Baños. He recently defended a dissertation proposal for his doctorate degree in communication at the same graduate school under a Philippine government scholarship grant. He was editor-in-chief of his high school paper Ang Ugat and the Adamson News.
