'This is not an act of God, as people have said'

Despite losing a daughter, three grandchildren and a son-in-law in deadly landslides last weekend, Freddie Kuyangan said he has no plans to move away from his village of Little Kibungan in the northern Philippines.
Kuyangan’s two-storey residence was one of the few homes miraculously spared by the avalanche of mud that buried more than 30 houses in Little Kibungan, a village in La Trinidad town, Benguet province, 210 kilometres north of Manila.
The 58-year-old said he grew up in the village and would not be easily persuaded by authorities to abandon the place because it was not safe.
‘I’ll leave it to fate,’ he said when told by local officials that there was a big danger of more landslides, owing to the village’s location on a creek below a mountain.
‘I don’t want to leave my home,’ he said. ‘I just finished paying for my lot. Besides, where will we be relocated? Most often the relocation site is far away from our livelihood. How can we leave our livelihood behind?’
Kuyangan’s sentiments were shared by other survivors of the landslide in Little Kibungan, which struck after days of heavy rains triggered by Typhoon Parma.
Up to 150 villagers were killed in the landslide, which was just one of several that occurred in Benguet province.
Kuyungan said he still has nightmares about the deadly night, and hopes that his wife and nine other children could return from the evacuation centre soon.
‘The officials are stopping my family and neighbours from coming home,’ he said. ‘I’m the only one here at night, and it’s eerie.’
In the wake of the deadly landslides and floods caused by back-to-back storms over the past weeks, the government is looking into relocating millions of people living along waterways and mountain slopes.
Relocation has been identified as a key component of the government’s reconstruction and rehabilitation plan.
‘Relocation would enable informal settlers to rebuild their homes with less risk of losing them again to floods and other calamities,’ said Governor Joey Salceda, a key adviser to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
More than 700 people were killed in the devastation caused by Typhoon Parma and storm Ketsana since September 26. The storms destroyed about 400 million dollars worth of infrastructure, crops and livestock, and displaced some 7 million people.
The 52-square-kilometre mountain resort city of Baguio, just adjacent to La Trinidad, is among the high-risk areas, experts said.
At least 50 people were killed in Baguio after it was hit by 38 landslides. The city was also cut off for three days due to damaged highways.
Neoman De La Cruz, chief engineer of the government’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau, warned that 60 to 70 per cent of Baguio were landslide-prone.
De La Cruz noted that the town was planned for only 12,000 inhabitants, but now has a population of more than 300,000.
‘The majority of the areas in Baguio City are steep slopes and not recommended for housing purposes,’ he said.
Several cities in metropolitan Manila are also considered high-risk areas.
Urban planner Felino Palafox said the deadly flash flood that hit several low-lying cities in and around Manila on September 26 did not surprise him.
As early as 1977, a land-use plan funded by the World Bank has warned about heavy flooding in the suburban city of Marikina and nearby areas, he said.
‘When I saw the damage caused by the floods, I realized that these were the same areas that had already been identified (in the study),’ Palafox said.
‘This is not an act of God - as people have said,’ he added. ‘This is a sin of omission on the part of the government and leadership.’
Palafox said the destruction of properties could have been mitigated and the deaths minimized, if not avoided, had the government followed the recommendations of the study 32 years ago.
He said that if he were to redesign metropolitan Manila, he would depopulate certain portions in the east, north and south of the capital where development did not conform to standards.
‘The pressures for development in areas unsuitable for development exist and will continue to exist, and without action, high and unnecessary environmental, social and economic costs will be incurred,’ he said.
After more than three decades, the government is finally taking notice.
In a cabinet meeting, Arroyo directed officials to review the 1977 study for clues on how to unclog metropolitan Manila and fix the capital’s urban planning.
‘Palafox alerted us that there was a master plan for the capital in 1977. Let’s look at it, and start from there,’ she said.

More money needed to help storm victims

A fund-raising effort to help millions displaced by two deadly cyclones in the Philippines has fallen US$55 million dollars short, and more aid is needed, a UN official said.
So far, only US$19 million had been committed from the 74 million dollars the United Nations requested in a “flash appeal” last week, said UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes.
That money is just for relief connected to Tropical Storm Ketsana which hit the Southeast Asian nation on September 26. But the United Nations will have to ask for more than the 74 million dollars initially requested after Tropical Storm Parma battered the country from October 3 to 10, said Holmes.
“We will revise it (the sum). We may need to increase it,” Holmes told reporters.
“The crisis is by no means over. Indeed, the hard work is just starting,” he said.
He would not specify how much money would be needed, saying both the UN and the government were still working together to assess the full damage from Ketsana and Parma.
The storms caused massive flooding in the capital Manila and surrounding areas, huge landslides in the northern mountains and left more than 700 dead, civil defence officials said.
Holmes said raising aid and relief funds for this “double disaster” was made more complicated by global financial turmoil and a spate of other disasters in the region which also needed aid money.
Food, shelter and medical care are needed by the more than six million people who Manila said were displaced by the storms, he said.
The country also urgently needs to better prepare itself for more disasters, he added.
Among the threats were diseases that could be spawned by stagnant flood waters that still cover many towns.
“Clearly, there is a major risk of disease,” said Holmes, calling for ways to remove the stagnant water rather than waiting for it to recede on its own.
UN resident coordinator Jacqueline Badcock said Holmes would be meeting with the world donor community in the coming days to see how to get more aid.
While the government was already looking at rebuilding, “we have to get through the immediate crisis situation first,” she said.