TWO WEEKS after Typhoon “Frank” cut a devastating swathe across the country, two of the worst-hit regions—Western Visayas and Eastern Visayas—were still knee-deep in flood waters, and the story of the scale of the human catastrophe is just beginning to unfold.

The immensity of the catastrophe has been covered up by a flurry of investigations into the sinking of MV Princess of the Stars, inquiries that have now degenerated into a colossal blame game as to the responsibility of Sulpicio Lines and a host of government agencies charged with maritime safety, including the Philippine Coast Guard and the weather bureau, Pagasa.

Relatives of typhoon victims on Panay Island returning to Manila after a visit bring tales of Visayans talking about “anaw” (a deluge), of flooding they had never seen in a lifetime. I have not read any single story from the news media about the scale and depth of human suffering from the calamity that has been trivialized into statistical summaries, where human lives lost have been reduced to digits.

Typhoon reports have been so routinized in an archipelago that is swept by an average of more than two dozens a year, and media stories on the typhoon toll have been no more than accounts of the typhoon tracked by progress reports of the PAGASA weather bureau, their velocity in terms of center winds at 120 kph at the height of the storm, and the usual infrastructure damage measured by roads, bridges, buildings and homes destroyed, and estimates of lives lost, and crops destroyed. These reports have dehumanized the human tragedy of a great disaster.

The story I get from fellow Ilonggos, Visayans and relatives tells of the horror of the flooding that saw water rising from the floor up to the neck in a matter of minutes—not hours—sending people scampering to the second floor, and rooftops for safety, a story not at all captured by press reports.

Following her arrival from a “working” visit to the United States, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo made a quick visit to Iloilo and the Visayan islands, which stood on path of the typhoon and lashed by its torrential rains, to demonstrate two things: She was a “hands-on” president in times of national disaster and a workaholic, and she was full of concern with the sufferings of the Visayan people.

The visit was partly intended to make up for her absence when she was in the US at the height of the typhoon, and that part of her activities in the US was to lobby for the nomination of an Ilonggo, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, at the United Nation, for a seat in the International Court of Justice.

Ilonggos remember that Santiago was not home and was gallivanting in the US when disaster struck, and when her home town of La Paz, in Iloilo, was submerged in flood waters and several of her constituents sought safety on rooftops, and for the first time, Ilonggos saw the Lizares-Gamboa Mansion, in Balantang, a tall building, half-submerged in flood waters.

The sight of the President in Iloilo did not hearten the Ilonggos. Upon her arrival at the new Iloilo domestic airport in Pavia as well as in Sta. Barbara, one of the heavily flooded towns of Iloilo, she called local officials who had been ordered to produce at least 250 “warm bodies,” to meet the presidential entourage, apparently for photo opportunity. She then ordered the local officials to conduct an inventory of the infrastructure. There was no mention of an inventory of the human lives lost, and she didn’t have time to listen to the tales of woos of the victims who clung for dear life for days on the rooftops.

The first wave of relief to the victims did not come from the government agencies. The flood of relief came from the relatives of victims in Manila. The relatives shipped boxes of used clothes for the victims who lost not only their clothes, cars, household appliances and utensils in the monstrous flooding that inundated most of Panay Island.

The floods were driven by one of the heaviest rainfalls that have ever fallen in the island in 24 hours in years for generations. Three dams of the Panay hydraulic and irrigation system broke and sent water cascading down the mountainsides. It was the water from the mountains that flooded the lowlands, destroyed the crops, and the fishpond dikes.

As soon as the President had ordered an inventory of the damage, she left for another quick visit to another Visayan island, near Romblon, to view the sunken Princess of the Stars, at Sibuyan. Her quickie visit left Ilonggos resentful and remembering that in the 2004 presidential election, it was the Central Visayan and West Visayan votes that gave her the reserves to overcome deficits in Luzon and Mindanao. They were bitter that when she visited and gave orders to the officials, they were still sitting on the rooftops of their flooded homes.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reported that excessive rainfall, not depleted mine fields and forests, were to blame for the apocalyptic and swift flooding. The Catholic bishops, reacting as if in conditioned reflex, had been quick to blame the flooding on environmental degradation caused by depleted forests and mining activity.

The DENR said the rainfall on June 20 reached 354 millimeters in one day, much higher than the region’s average monthly rainfall of 196 millimeters. This was compounded by high tide that reached 1.8 meters. The high tide prevented excess water from the Tigum and Aganan Rivers, the main tributaries of Iloilo, from flowing into the sea. The DENR claimed there has been no significant logging on Panay in the past decade.

One Response to “The untold story of the Panay deluge”

• 1
  Ernest Federiso
  July 9th, 2008 11:44

  it is not true that three dams broke during that fateful day. this was confirmed by NIA in a radio interview last sunday. no dam will ever break here because dams here are of the run-of-the-river type.

  also, mr. doronila missed to mention that the average monthly rainfall in iloilo for the month of june is 300mm. hence, the rainfall for one whole month fell in just a day.

  i think president arroyo should put a a P10-billion panay rehabilitation fund, as proposed by former senate president franklin drilon, as what the government did in region 5 after the onslaught of typhoon reming. it would also help if she would release even a portion of the CDF of opposition senators, which the palace controls, to help us.

  the real catastrophe or “aftershock” of the calamity here is that politicians continue to bicker, and turned the calamity into an opportunity to grandstand.

  in order to pay back for the ilonggos’ solid support for the president (she garnered a lead of more than 800,000 in western visayas) in the 2004 elections, and to be an example that she really cares for the ilonggos, regardless of the local political scuffles, she should endorse what ex-senator drilon has proposed. congressman arthur defensor, the house majority leader, knows better about the proposal. they were together during the live interview in sarabia manor hotel, iloilo city.

Leave a Reply