recipe for disaster

I, too, like other Filipino experts, am inclined to say that the landslide in Southern Leyte was a geographical accident waiting to happen.

The recent landslide in Southern Leyte was triggered by a low magnitude earthquake -- which came after two weeks of non-stop, heavy rainfall -- and expedited the massive ground movements. Sad thing was, the mud slide buried an entire farming settlement situated directly below the mountainside, leaving at least 2,000 people dead or missing and wiping out almost 500 houses. A series of unfortunate events, you say?

The fact of the matter is, Leyte sits on the Philippine Fault, where numerous seismic activities such as earthquakes occur, making the area prone to various geological hazards. The whole province is also bombarded by heavy precipitation almost all year round, receiving about twice the amount of rainfall experienced by metropolitan Manila. Areas found on the eastern part of the country, like the Sierra Madre mountain range in Luzon, most of the Bicol Region, Samar Island, and eastern Mindanao, are also in a similar predicament in terms of climatic conditions.

In recent years, these other calamities happened. The four consecutive typhoons in November 2004, which hit the provinces of Aurora, Quezon, and Nueva Ecija the hardest, adversely affected several thousand families and destroyed millions worth of property. Blame was pointed to both commercial and illegal logging of forests rampant in those areas, as well as mining, while some reputable organizations said otherwise, saying the felled trees from the landslides and floods that occurred due to heavy rainfall even exacerbated the destruction by becoming debris instead of keeping the soil intact and preventing the landslides. In the early 1990s, the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo resulted in a similar destruction of epic proportions throughout the whole country, and was renowned throughout the world. At that same time in Ormoc, Leyte, an unforgettable flash flood occurred that killed thousands of people. The list goes on and I can't even recall all of them.

What actually grieves me is that these naturally occurring events already tend to happen on a regular basis. It's as if the large-scale loss of lives and property are here to stay in the Philippines.

But the fact is, the Philippines is strategically situated, albeit unfortunately, along the superhighway of tropical cyclones that enters Southeast Asia -- particularly at the forefront (such that it serves as a buffer for other countries like Vietnam, China, and Thailand, among others), and along the hotspot of regular volcanic eruptions and earthquakes (being found on the famous "Ring of Fire" that encircles the Pacific). And maybe I just have to accept this.

But its not all downhill from there since the Philippines' unique geological situation, ironically, provided the right conditions to make it host to one of the richest biological diversity in the world, and simultaneously, endowing it with exceptional mineral resources as well. A conflict between the two resulting resource uses (e.g., conserving biodiversity in forest ecosystems vs. harnessing mineral potentials beneath the ground within the same space) is inevitable, and a heated debate over this issue has always ensued. To make a case in point, Samar Island possesses unique species of flora and fauna not found anywhere else in the world (e.g., Philippine Eagle) while also sitting on one of the largest bauxite reserves known in the world.

But I think the Philippines, being born with all these natural calamities, is not all there is to completing the necessary ingredients in becoming a geographical accident waiting to happen. The truth is, from my point of view, you can't even blame these natural events for occurring as they should.

Looking back at history and at how systems govern the country tell me that there was, and still is, something wrong going on.

The culprit involves the failure of government, and generally of Filipinos, to implement a genuine land use framework. Not to be overly simplistic, but I believe this is the unfortunate cause that renders Filipino communities, particularly those in underdeveloped, economically-deprived, poverty-stricken, and disaster-prone provinces, as the usual victims to these natural calamities repeatedly.

I mean, look: the Philippines has an obsolete land classification system. Introduced probably during the 1940s (or earlier), land use in the Philippines was classified into 4 types:

1. forestland, being areas characterized by mountainous terrain which are set aside for forest purposes (e.g., pasture, timber production);

2. alienable and disposable (A&D), being lands mostly situated on plains and flat areas which may be subjected to private ownership (e.g., settlements, prime agricultural lands);

3. mineral lands, being areas with rich mineral endowments set aside for mining or energy generation, perhaps; and

4. national parks, being areas protecting unique biological diversity, or areas of historical significance.

But what happens to the ancestral lands of the indigenous Filipino peoples? In which category do you put them? What if there are overlaps in utilization in an area between these four types? In short, this land classification system is not enough and no longer suitable in this day and age to define how Philippine land, in its scarcity and uneven distribution, may be utilized!

More than 54% of the country is classified as forestland, and by definition of law, it cannot be subjected to private ownership. Meaning, the other 46% are the only areas that can be inhabited by 76.5 million Filipinos, provided that these are all A&D, of which we know are not. And besides, we all know that land ownership in the Philippines works only in the favor of an elite few. This imbalance, consequently, forces most Filipinos to occupy and migrate to the uplands (or forestlands, or may even be mineral lands or national parks). And when a natural calamity strikes (like the one in Leyte just recently)... instant disaster! All because they shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Which brings me to my next point: that land use planning in the country has hardly been effective or strictly implemented. Imagine this: a mayor uses his power and influence to sway the land use system to his favor by orchestrating the land use planning in the town of his jurisdiction, say, to facilitate the construction of a major thoroughfare on his property such that urban/rural development flourishes there; thus, increasing the value of his property and even entitling him to possible profits. The unbelievable part of this illustration is that his property might not even be qualified for urban development, and maybe, just maybe, the land use plans may have been falsified just to make it so. And this is hardly "kwentong barbero."

Truly, lands in this country are owned only by a few, which leaves a lot of Filipinos landless and consequently creates unequal opportunities. Hundreds of years under the Spanish rule through the Regalian Doctrine, which imposed that Philippine soil was the sole ownership of the King of Spain, paved the way for indigenous Filipinos to "legitimately" lose ownership of the land that their forefathers owned since time immemorial. Since then, lands in thousands of hectares have been unfortunately shared only among the powerful friars of the Church and influential families of Kastilas.

We ought to accept the fact that the Philippines is prone to natural disasters. But the only way we can counter or prevent the annually increasing body count as a result of these calamities is to be prepared for the worst. But hey, how do you prepare for an earthquake? Or a landslide? Or a flash flood?

I don't think we ever can. Or maybe not without sophisticated early warning technology.

I think we can only prepare for this by truly implementing a national land use system hand-in-hand with effective agrarian reform that can truly reflect genuine sustainable development. I mean, at one point, the government through its finest research or disaster mitigation agencies have identified geohazardous areas, which should have banned settlements outright. For example, Leyte being known to be an extremely geohazardous province should have classified areas which are not suitable for settlements so that these natural events will not result to loss of lives and property. Also, the flash flood tragedy that happened in Infanta late in 2004 should also have not killed and destroyed thousands of people and property if they were not situated on a floodplain. But hey, didn't early civilizations in Mesopotamia thrive along the floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, or the Egyptians along the mighty Nile River? It's perfectly logical then to live along floodplains. But remember, these early civilizations, while they prospered through livelihood in agriculture by living in floodplains, were also nomadic peoples. They easily went from here to there with no permanent residence; thus, avoiding the floods when the rivers overflowed during the wet seasons. Of course, settlements began emerging not before they had harnessed engineering and construction which paved the way for organized agriculture.

Unless a reform of present systems are taken, you might say that the Philippines chose to swallow quite a recipe for disaster.

[Photo credits: debris of felled trees along Agos River in Quezon, topographic map of the Philippines, and landslide (Don De Alban); map of Southeast Asia (US CIA); Pacific Ring of Fire map (USGS)]