Republic Act 10121, or the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act, explicitly provides that officials will be held accountable for their negligence or inaction that results in death and damage to properties during disasters.
Affected residents and concerned citizens are calling for the country’s leaders to come up with better solutions to address flooding after a 12-foot high floodwater submerged 30 percent of the land area of Naga City.
Entrepreneur Job Llaguna said that a better flood control system in the Philippines became a necessity after the devastation in Naga.
“One could only hope that our leaders would look for better flood control systems. We hope that flood-prone towns and cities can have a flood control system similar to Bonifacio Global City (BGC). A giant water detention tank like this is better than 100 years’ worth of concerts. Hindi lang puro road concreting and urban planning, hindi lang pagbibigay ayuda at bigas ang public service,” Llaguna said, who owns Treescape, a leisure farm in Camarines Sur.
If Naga City is 30 percent flooded during and after the onslaught of Kristine, other towns within Camarines Sur are almost totally submerged.
“Dito po sa Camarines Sur, may towns like Gainza and Bula na talagang na submerge halos lahat,” Llaguna added.
A day after Kristine brought massive flooding in Bicol, Llaguna shared an infographic with his colleagues, educating them about the flood control system in BGC in Taguig City.
BGC has a 12-meter-deep water retention tank located under Burgos Circle that can store 20 million liters of water, which is equivalent to eight Olympic-sized swimming pools. When the rains stop, the water is released into a creek and then into the Pasig River.
This water-impounding structure, which has the depth of a four-story building, is the reason why BGC remains flood-free.
Electrician Dario Estrera, who used to work with the local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office in Leyte, said that the flooding in the Bicol region has disrupted the daily bus transport from the province going to Metro Manila. The delay did not only affect routes coming from Leyte; Kristine also damaged the Maharlika Highway that connects Luzon to Visayas and Mindanao, dealing a considerable economic loss.
Daily bus trips from several towns and cities in Samar, Leyte, Bohol, Cebu, and Mindanao traverse the Bicol region’s Maharlika Highway.
Juris Uy de Leon, who studied Doctor of Medicine at the University of Sto Tomas, said that it is ironic that government officials neglected climate change and disaster risk reduction.
“Take into account rin yang pag neglect ng government sa problems ng climate change that resulted into warmer oceans that caused greater typhoons. Improper allocation of funds na instead sa Disaster Risk Reduction Management mag focus sa iba napunta, which was a huge fail,” he said.
Republic Act 10121, or the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act, explicitly provides that officials will be held accountable for their negligence or inaction that results in death and damage to properties during disasters.
Accountability is an integral part of good governance. Those who are entrusted with the responsibility for handling various aspects of governance should be held accountable for what they are expected to do to ensure a significant reduction in disaster risks.
