CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: The Philippines is situated in the Asia-Pacific Zone, the most disaster-prone area in the world aside from the fact that it is where the ring of fire and seismic belt is located. Thus, besides being naturally prone to major disasters, disasters generated by global warming add up to its woes. In recent years, various calamities consecutively visited the country. Typhoon Sendong struck down a conurbation of communities along the stretch of Iligan River in Mindanao in December, 2011 drowning a lot of inhabitants and dispossessing the survivors of their homes. In December, 2012, Typhoon Pablo also struck in Mindanao for a second time also causing a lot of miseries to affected areas just like those affected by Sendong the previous year. Superhowler Yolanda is the most recent typhoon to visit the country and almost obliterated Tacloban City and Guiuan, Samar where it first made a landfall in the early morning of November 8, 2013. In Tacloban, heavy rains and strong gusts of howling winds accompanied by a 20-meter tsunami-like sea surge and dispossessed more than 4 million persons of homes aside from more than 7,ooo deaths(This was first mentioned in an earlier posting). Earlier on October 15, a 7.2-magnitude Earthquake struck Eastern Bohol and displaced a lot of inhabitants. About less than five years ago circa 2009, Typhoon Ondoy flooded a lot of areas in Metro Manila and killed more than 800 hundred persons on September 28. About 300 more were added to the fatalities due to leptospirosis which became an epidemic following the biblically massive flooding. The heavy rains dumped by Ondoy for continuous six hours on said day equaled that of the volume of rain dumped in a month. On its heels, Typhoon Pepeng made a landfall on October 4 and left the PAR about a day or 2 later but an oncoming typhoon blocked its exit and created the so-called Fujiwara Effect in which the blocked Typhoon Pepeng came back and made a hard landfall on areas in Northern Luzon that it passed on earlier. It is like looping the loop, to use a figurative term in the return strike of Pepeng in Northern Luzon. It is as if it was an airplane that made a vertical, circular maneuver in the skies. The return strike on October 8 with continuous heavy rainfall prevenient on said date ravaged the Cordilleras. It caused a humungous flashflood at Kayan East, Tadian, Mt. Province. In that barangay, one purok (E-engan) situated on a steep gradient in said barangay was almost buried with several homes and 35 persons buried alive and sunk to the bottom of the earth. This morbid event occurred at around 6pm on October 8,2009. At about the same time, Purok Little Kibungan of La Trinidad, Benguet, which also was situated on a steep gradient in that municipality, suffered massive erosion which was became a total wrecking machine as it totally destroyed homes which it carried down the slope and deposited as crumpled heap of debris at the foot of the slope. About 77 persons persons (mostly native Cordillerans) were instantly killed in the process. About two decades earlier, a killer flashflood struck down Ormoc City in 1991 in which hundreds of homes were immediately destroyed and more than 4,000 persons killed. These slew of calamities were caused by massive rains brought about by global warming. The earth has become less livable due to stresses and strains caused by global warming which is ramped by heat generated by the thinning of the ozone layer. This is aside from the heat-trapping gases from toxic fumes generated by vehicles and factories using a lot of fossil fuels. Climate Change Adaptation has now become the ZEITGIST and huge preoccupation of our time. It is thus that every LGU, including the barangays, should better take heed to seriously undertake disaster preparedness measures vis-a-vis climate change before the next disaster strikes. Meanwhile, it is proper that third world countries like the Philippines should fulminate against the excesses of the industrialized countries, with China and India included, in saturating the atmosphere with deadly toxic gases. Payback should be demanded from the industrialized countries for these miseries inflicted on wrethced third world countries. I reckon that this is proper and altogether reasonable for thirld world countries to do. I hope you agree with this stand, Pareng Rene. He he he
Posted on: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 06:08:43 +0000
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