Beyond the numbers: Reporting disaster

CHEERS TO the Philippine Daily Inquirer for calling attention to the larger landscape of devastation that Typhoon Maring (Kompasu) left in Northern Luzon.  Maring brought above a month’s average rainfall last October 11 and 12, sweeping through Cagayan Valley, the Cordilleras, the Ilocos region, Pangasinan, as well as parts of Palawan or Mimaropa.

Its editorial “The North needs help” on October 15, listed the fatalities and estimates of losses and damage, especially the impact on agriculture. But it also criticized the government’s failure to  sufficiently warn  communities in the path of the storm. 

The editorial continued: “News of Maring’s devastation came as a surprise to many. There were no extraordinary warnings from the weather bureau and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), and no mention at all of the calamity unfolding as President Duterte gave a public address on Monday night. It was only through social media—the desperate posts of people in the battered areas and Vice President Leni Robredo’s tweets around 1 a.m. Tuesday morning appealing for help and providing updates—that most people got alerted about the disastrous floods sweeping across the country’s northern provinces. Was the government caught flatfooted by Maring, and was the NDRRMC remiss in warning provinces about the intensity of the howler?”

Recalling how typhoon Ulysses caused devastating floods in Cagayan last year, the editorial identified an urgent need: “A more comprehensive solution to perennial flooding is clearly warranted.”

Media have only lately called attention to the Duterte administration’s lack of interest in disaster events. It is actually a hallmark of his presidency. He was on one of his many trips abroad when storm Typhoon Lawin (international name: Haima) hit the country in October 2016. Disaster response was managed only by local government units and  NDRRMC chapters. No Cabinet official appeared on the local scene to represent the absent president. There was also no word of inquiry or instruction sent from where the president was, and no  assessment either when he returned. 

Media must keep their focus on the long-term responses to the frequency and severity of climatic disasters. Having ignored this throughout his term, the president is not likely to endorse this agenda to his anointed candidates for 2022. Journalists should keep this issue alive in the public sphere so that the people themselves will demand of national government a plan to protect  the people and the homeland.