Damn your resilience
So, the Philippines has been classified as an upper middle income economy by the World Bank. And the impending “industrialization” of the Philippines, thanks to the “chip boom”—the growth in the semiconductor industry—will catapult us into upper income status in no time at all.
Allegedly.
Resilience, a dirty word
Such announcements would normally be hailed as excellent news, but I imagine that the masses who still need to get up at three in the morning to prepare for the long commute to work would beg to differ. Not to mention that the recent unrelenting rains made it impossible for them to come to work at all.
We’ve all seen the videos—a man crawling across a wall and grabbing at the window bars like a wannabe Spider-Man just to avoid wading through floodwaters to get to work; rafts ferrying kids to school along streets transformed into murky, trash-filled waters; someone using his bare hands to unclog a drain on a public thoroughfare; fish in the market raised on stools and oil drums despite the floods because, well, life goes on, people have to eat, and vendors have to sell.
Oh, but aren’t Filipinos so resilient? Look! They’re still smiling, they’re finding creative solutions to a recurring situation, they’re still making TikToks despite being submerged in waist-deep, leptospirosis-infested waters.
Where other countries install stormwater drains, river drains, and reservoir defenses, the Philippines has one solution: Resilience.
Resilience is a dirty word. It’s a cop-out, a surrender. Resilience is what happens when the government fails its people.
An entirely fixable problem that remains a problem
What’s even more galling is that a year after, no significant flood control measures have been implemented.
Why is this not a priority? How are you going to get the people most affected by the rains—from the no work, no pay employees to the public school student, to every single ordinary Filipino creeping up that ladder toward upper middle income comfort? The ordinary Filipino who can’t even do a productive day’s work, thanks to the fact that they are stranded—be it at home, at school, or in the offices and warehouses?
As early as 1906, during the American colonial era, urban master planner Daniel Burnham included in his plan for Manila a recommendation to control the flow of water and mitigate flooding by filling up the moat around Intramuros and developing a system of waterways.
For one reason or another—politics, budget constraints, change of administration, etc.—his plan was not fully implemented. His successors also submitted proposals to address the flooding situation. The blueprints are all archived. What percentage of these plans actually saw fruition is anyone’s guess.
We’re just abysmal at disaster preparedness
One hundred and twenty years later, not much has changed—except that the projects were greenlighted, but our politicians, contractors, and government officials chose to run away with the funds allocated for flood control. Note that other countries have successfully managed to install drainage and flow systems that minimize flooding and make it easier to bounce back after such disasters.
We’re not the only country lashed by ferocious typhoons; we’re just abysmal at disaster preparedness.
So sure, we may be rich in resilience, but imagine how much better it could be if it came with actual infrastructure to boost?
This is an entirely fixable problem and yet there seems to be no political will to fix it. Wait till the CEO of a multinational company—whom we lured to our shores with tax incentives and a young, able, and English-speaking workforce—finds himself stuck in his car atop the EDSA overpass for seven hours, with no cellphone signal, unable to get back to the office to close a deal.
Welcome to your upper middle income economy.
