By GILL H. BOEHRINGER
By seeking to convince its readers that the effects of Ondoy were “felt equally by rich and poor” and that it was a “great equalizer,” the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the most influential newspaper in the Philippines, was attempting to bolster the view that the Filipino class system had nothing to do with the disaster, and that the lives of all Filipinos are shaped by the same forces of nature, even by fate or by God.
By ARTHUR ALLAD-IW
The Cordillera region incurred most of the damages in Northern Luzon with 309 dead and P1.398 billion of damaged infrastructures and agriculture caused by typhoon Pepeng.
In the years ahead, the number and magnitude of disasters will increase with colossal human and economic losses. The task of rescue, recovery, relief and rehabilitation will have to fall more and more on the people themselves as they have in fact done in recent years.
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
Days after Ondoy struck, the government declared that it would no longer allow these poor Filipinos to return to their shattered homes.
By JANESS ANN J. ELLAO
The Citizen’s Disaster Response Center urges the passage of the Disaster Risk Reduction Management Bill. But even without this law, trainings in disaster mitigation should be conducted down to the barangay level, it says.
Women and men are differently affected by natural disasters. For example, women are especially vulnerable to poor nutrition, vitamin and iron deficiency—especially anemia, which can be fatal in pregnancy.
By ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO Bulatlat.com MANILA — The recent onslaughts of storms Ondoy and Pepeng in the Philippines have drawn attention not only to the general lack of disaster preparedness in the country but also to how the government’s so-called calamity funds have been spent in the last few years. The calamity fund, according to…
By ARNOLD PADILLA
The challenge that policy makers now face is how to raise the needed resources to fund in a sustainable manner and without placing additional burden on Filipinos the requirements of relief and rehabilitation.
By CARLOS H. CONDE
A disaster-prone country like the Philippines should by now be a nation of experts on calamities and how to deal with them. But, as Ondoy has shown, Filipinos are almost always caught unawares. And often, the high cost of these calamities are caused not so much by lack of knowledge or resources as by poor governance.
MANILA – Aside from killing them and displacing them from their homes and exposing them to illness, tropical storm Ondoy dealt poor Filipino families severe blows that could make their lives in the months ahead much more difficult. (Read sidebar: Ondoy Pushes Tens of Thousands of Families Into Severe Difficulty, Long-Term Poverty) Take the case…
For the Poor, Ondoy Strikes Double Whammy