Now if you're a Filipino, you have probably heard of the big flood in Metro Manila. You know, you would think that given our country has a tropical climate, is located next to the Pacific and typhoons and heavy rainfall are not at all an unusual occurrence that we could handle this sort of thing. But it appears that yet again, there's flooding and people are suffering just like Typhoon Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng before.
It seems nothing has been learned from those past events. People still throw garbage anywhere and then wonder why the drains get clogged. Squatters or rather, "informal settlers" are allowed to clog up waterways and live in disaster-prone areas. You got infrastructure plans that are frequently stopped or worse, scrapped whenever some new asshole moves into Malacanang Palace.
If I may break off for a moment, this reminds me of the time a Nobel Prize winner in Economics visited the University of San Carlos. I think his name was Kydland. He spoke about the problems of Philippine economics, one of them being the lack of consistency in government policies and long term planning. You see, once an administration is replaced by another one, there's this tendency for the new to veer the government and its policies and plans in different directions. For example, it's no secret that the current administration cancelled a lot of flood control infrastructure projects initiated by the previous administration. Now, I don't know the reason why it was cancelled and I'm not going to go the cynical route and say it was just out of spite, but my point is that there's a lack of continuity and long term planning in Philippine governance in general and not just the economy. This isn't the first time this has happened. In fact, it's a trend going back to administrations decades before.
But why? Well the Nobel Laureate didn't go to the "whys" as that would be more in the realm of politics. My own opinion is that given the prevalence of patronage politics in the Philippines, everything done by an administration is for the good of it's cronies. When a new administration comes in, you got a whole new set of patrons and bootlickers so you need to reset those projects and get them lined up for "your people" instead. Hence, nothing really gets done. This is just my theory though.
Anyway, back to the flood. If the flood wasn't bad enough, you've got people running around claiming that the flood is divine punishment from God for the RH bill. I'm not the most dutiful Christian in the world but I find this offensive. God doesn't cause human suffering, okay? That's a common mistake. You can't have an "all good and loving" God AND have him be a great smiter of infidels too. Doesn't anyone even bother to understand their own goddamned religion anymore?
Besides, how come only Manila is flooded? If it were divine punishment, how come us hicks down south are just snug and comfy in our beds? Also, the RH bill hasn't even been signed into law yet. Come on God, that ain't fair! It's just sad that people would make such stupid comments like that. It really cheapens both the issues of the flood and the bill. Some people even took the date of the disaster, August 8-7, 2012, and linked it to a bible verse in Genesis about Noah's ark and the command to go forth and multiply or something. How stupid. Why Genesis? Why not just close your eyes and pick a book at random and hope you don't get something irrelevant. Hey, let me.
Luke 8:7-12 NIV
"Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the
kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,
“‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’
“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.
Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
I guess the lesson here is that we should sow seeds on the floodplains and not houses?
It seems nothing has been learned from those past events. People still throw garbage anywhere and then wonder why the drains get clogged. Squatters or rather, "informal settlers" are allowed to clog up waterways and live in disaster-prone areas. You got infrastructure plans that are frequently stopped or worse, scrapped whenever some new asshole moves into Malacanang Palace.
If I may break off for a moment, this reminds me of the time a Nobel Prize winner in Economics visited the University of San Carlos. I think his name was Kydland. He spoke about the problems of Philippine economics, one of them being the lack of consistency in government policies and long term planning. You see, once an administration is replaced by another one, there's this tendency for the new to veer the government and its policies and plans in different directions. For example, it's no secret that the current administration cancelled a lot of flood control infrastructure projects initiated by the previous administration. Now, I don't know the reason why it was cancelled and I'm not going to go the cynical route and say it was just out of spite, but my point is that there's a lack of continuity and long term planning in Philippine governance in general and not just the economy. This isn't the first time this has happened. In fact, it's a trend going back to administrations decades before.
But why? Well the Nobel Laureate didn't go to the "whys" as that would be more in the realm of politics. My own opinion is that given the prevalence of patronage politics in the Philippines, everything done by an administration is for the good of it's cronies. When a new administration comes in, you got a whole new set of patrons and bootlickers so you need to reset those projects and get them lined up for "your people" instead. Hence, nothing really gets done. This is just my theory though.
Anyway, back to the flood. If the flood wasn't bad enough, you've got people running around claiming that the flood is divine punishment from God for the RH bill. I'm not the most dutiful Christian in the world but I find this offensive. God doesn't cause human suffering, okay? That's a common mistake. You can't have an "all good and loving" God AND have him be a great smiter of infidels too. Doesn't anyone even bother to understand their own goddamned religion anymore?
Besides, how come only Manila is flooded? If it were divine punishment, how come us hicks down south are just snug and comfy in our beds? Also, the RH bill hasn't even been signed into law yet. Come on God, that ain't fair! It's just sad that people would make such stupid comments like that. It really cheapens both the issues of the flood and the bill. Some people even took the date of the disaster, August 8-7, 2012, and linked it to a bible verse in Genesis about Noah's ark and the command to go forth and multiply or something. How stupid. Why Genesis? Why not just close your eyes and pick a book at random and hope you don't get something irrelevant. Hey, let me.
Luke 8:7-12 NIV
"Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown.”
When he said this, he called out, “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.”
His disciples asked him what this parable meant. He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the
kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,
“‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’
“This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God.
Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
I guess the lesson here is that we should sow seeds on the floodplains and not houses?
This won't be the last.
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