And the waters came again

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Again, floodwaters have rushed into the greater part of Manila and once more, evacuation centers are teeming with residents whose homes have either been swept away, or rendered unlivable by the dirty water that has entered them. This has become a regular happening in the capital city, and this time, early estimates from foreign news syndicates say that more than 50 percent of the city is underwater.

Of course officials of the towns and cities affected have come up again with the usual solutions: open evacuation centers, send out some rice, canned goods, noodles and water to the evacuees. And then calls will go out for assistance, and donations of cash and kind will pour in, to tide the victims over, until the next typhoon.

Some old people wonder why such floods and displacements very seldom happened in their own early days. The answer is very easy to produce: That is because they did not have to cope with the so-called “informal settlers”, a.k.a. and more accurately known as “squatters”. We do sympathize with their misery whenever they are driven out of their shanties or makeshift homes when rains and floods come, but that is something they have brought upon themselves and, unfortunately, also upon others who are not responsible.

Everywhere one goes, but most especially in the bigger cities, squatters have already become a perennial problem. Most of them come into the cities, without any home to occupy, nor do they have the means to temporarily rent a living space. So they settle in the brink of rivers or lakes, in seashores, under bridges, beside canals, where their hovels successfully block the passage of any rainwater that may fall, out of the urban areas. Hence the deadly floods.

For local governments, to zero in or such minor items as plastics in canals and blaming them for floods, is a very simplistic way of looking at the problem. It happens to be a bigger one, which, hopefully, the move of a new group that would regulate the influx of squatters, will be of some help.

If it does not work, then, heaven help us, the floods, the evacuations, the drowning victims and those flood-related ailments, will just continue to persist.*