In his October 11, 2009 article on the Inquirer, Arch. Augusto Villalon pointed out that the Philippine government’s (local and national) response to natural calamities such as the recent typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng is careless. So careless, that they think of measures to undertake a day or even hours before the event. Even worse, they "plan" their response when a disaster is already happening. If I remember my lessons right, planning is supposed to be thinking ahead in preparation for an expected event or series of events. Now, when a critical event is a big and obvious possibility, it is also critical to plan big and way, way ahead of time. I heard someone say that we cannot really say what’s going to happen because these are acts of nature, acts of God. Agree. However, the elements brought about by these acts have been around us for millions of years that we know how they behave. Their behavior is already obvious to us. Imagine Metro Manila and its streets as a huge dry dent on the ground. Within are smaller and deeper dents with water, the esteros. Even a deeper and larger dent is the Pasig River that leads to the deepest dents outside Metro Manila, the Manila Bay and the surrounding seas. Now if we started to fill the deep dents inside Metro Manila, water would seek and take up the space on the next dent available. Isn’t that obvious? And we don’t want that water to be on the dry dent where we are, don't we? Then why fill up the esteros and the rivers? Not only with garbage, but also with soil and concrete.
The canals and esteros of Manila, the tributaries of the Pasig River, were wide and clean back then. Just like in Venice, the canals of Manila used to play a big role in the capital’s transportation and commerce. People would go around the town and trade goods via the natural water system.
Now when we hear the word estero (Spanish for estuary) or canal, we’d think of a channel with dark, muddy “water”, stagnant or flowing on it. Pasig River and its branches don’t appeal to us anymore. Nowadays we can easily ignore the importance and the role of these waterways in our daily lives. We only remember the part they play in the urban life when we see the waters which are supposedly running on them come rushing through our streets and filling up our living rooms. If we don’t want to be watered again, let us reconsider how we treat our rivers and canals before they consider us (the way we don't want to be considered).
The canals and esteros of Manila, the tributaries of the Pasig River, were wide and clean back then. Just like in Venice, the canals of Manila used to play a big role in the capital’s transportation and commerce. People would go around the town and trade goods via the natural water system.
Now when we hear the word estero (Spanish for estuary) or canal, we’d think of a channel with dark, muddy “water”, stagnant or flowing on it. Pasig River and its branches don’t appeal to us anymore. Nowadays we can easily ignore the importance and the role of these waterways in our daily lives. We only remember the part they play in the urban life when we see the waters which are supposedly running on them come rushing through our streets and filling up our living rooms. If we don’t want to be watered again, let us reconsider how we treat our rivers and canals before they consider us (the way we don't want to be considered).
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