FLOODS Media has started reporting again on the Flood. Evacuations, disaster response, tragedy, etc. This happens every year. Every year. Every year. Floods and the consequent cost on human life and property should be lessening every year. Floods should be going down in levels, the threat and inconvenience to human life, not to mention deaths, should be lessening every year. Lessening if government is doing something about it. Our friend, urban and environmental architect, urban improvement advocate, Paulo Alcazaren, and very few others like him, would be repeating their analyses and proposals. Why are there floods. What should be done. What is government doing about it. But they would continue to be voices in the wilderness, like John the Baptist. What should be done is what every government should have been doing since Independence. Or since the Revolution of 1896. Floods in Metro Manila have been there since Spanish times. All the governments that took over the country, that managed the Metropolis and the Archipelago, after we drove out colonists—Spanish, American, and the Japanese for a brief period—should have been planning and planning, and doing and doing, addressing the flood problem and many other problems besides. You need to clean up the esteros? Clean them up. Don’t cover them up. You need to clear all waterways from squatters big and small, rich and poor, politicians and non-politicians, powerful and not-powerful? Clear them up. You need to build spillways and flood control infrastructure? Build them. You need to acquire land for right-of-way? Acquire them. You need to upgrade the dams, the locks, the floodgates, etc.? Do that. You need to build more floodgates? Build. You need to clean all drainage, build more drainage, less pavements, build more roads, bridges, railroads, get the trains running, more mass transit, more housing, less or no housing in danger areas, create great cities, etc. etc. Do it. (A city, and a nation, is a work in progress by its government and people.) This government, all governments before it, and after it, should have done, should be doing all these things. Doing this piecemeal, at random, when the flood or the fire is there, is patchwork, panakip-butas. You don’t have funds? We don’t believe you. There were and are millions of taxpayers then and now. The economy “has been/is improving/has improved.” Every administration since Independence says that. Convert that kind of progress into services. It is difficult to run a country. You have to look after everybody, every sector: industry, agriculture, culture, etc. etc. Pipe dream? Ideal? No, Need. That is what every country needs. If any administration can’t improve ALL services, can’t address ALL problems, kick them out next elections. They don’t have the capability? Then they don’t have the right to serve. You want to join government? You want to run for public office? Think of all these things. You’re an ordinary citizen? A taxpayer? Demand for all these things. Every government has only one mandate: Improve The Lives of the People. All the people. And the poor, especially. And the only way to do it is to provide adequate Services. All of economics, all investments, are needed so that government can provide Services. Physical and Social Infrastructure. Education and Health. The Culture of Dignity. And flood control is a very big part of it. Yes. The Only Mandate. Of Every Government. Is Service. This government and all those before it, all those after it. That is the only government we need. Everything else is ineptitude.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 03:10:38 +0000
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