There
are three calamities that I will never forget: Ondoy, Habagat and Yolanda. When
I was in high school, Ondoy hit. It was the first time I experienced colossal
flooding. There was a one-week suspension due to the disaster Ondoy brought to
us. When I reached college, there was a typhoon somewhere in the Philippines
which caused monsoon rain in our area. It was “mala-Ondoy” and there was again
a one-week suspension. And just last year, one of the worst calamities hit the
southern regions of the Philippines, Yolanda. Although and fortunately I was
not a victim of Yolanda, I was affected by how it really destroyed the southern
parts of our country. The strong winds that Yolanda brought caused storm surge
which wiped-out thousands of infrastructures and razed the lives of many
people.
It is sad and shameful to admit that
all these phenomena can be partly accountable for the works of irresponsible
humans: improper disposal of trash, exploitation of natural resources and the
list goes on. If all these wrongful actions of humans continue, global warming
would, without a doubt, exacerbate. It would not be surprising if we come to a
time where there will be a hundred typhoons for each year. Compared to the
previous decades, there has been an increase in the number of typhoons (and its
effects worse) that hit for each year. We cannot undo the escalating effects of
global warming. But what we can do, as human living in the 21st
century, is to try to decrease the disaster that the calamities will bring.
Just last week, Miriam College
celebrated her environment week. As part of its celebration, talks relevant to
Mother Nature were conducted. One of them was Talk on Hazards which I attended.
Although we were not able to finish the whole talk [because we had an exam], I
learned many things and became more enlightened about hazards.
If it were not for the talk, I would
not have known that disaster and hazards are two different things. In fact, I
often confused disaster with hazards. The hazard is the uncontrollable calamity
such as typhoon and earthquake. This hazard becomes a disaster IF people become
greatly affected: erosion of soil, death and crumbled infrastructures.
Now that there is an increasing
number of hazards, there is also an escalating attempts to minimize the
disaster that these will bring. In response to what is happening now, DOST
constructed Project NOAH. Using innovation, NOAH will undertake disaster.
Currently they have nine projects all for the attempts to minimize disaster.
However, there seems to be one problem that Project NOAH faces that cannot be
underestimated nor neglected: quick dissemination of RIGHT information. Although
Project NOAH is now using the social media to disseminate information and
warnings, many people STILL neglect the notification. For instance, Project
NOAH twitted an announcement. On that same instant, a celebrity posted a
“selfie”. Guess what people gave more attention to? The celebrity’s selfie.
With all means, Project NOAH is trying to make their announcements more
appealing to the public so that it would be paid attention to.
I, being one the people in the
social media, am partly guilty of this (I do not have twitter). Sometimes (or
most of the times) I hit “like” or “share” for nonsense photos when there are
more important things or posts that should be given attention to. I realized
that I may have saved tens to hundreds of lives if I reposted weather updates
or storm warnings. As a 19-year-old person, I guess it is time that I become
more socially involved and aware by reading newspapers and watching news
instead of devoting time to nonsense movies and books. I am a Filipino. This is
my country the Philippines. I should take responsibility of caring for my
fellow countrymen even by simply telling them of the warnings posted on social
media.
The storm surge that Yolanda brought
was something that the people of Visayas did not know. And because they did not
know what storm surge could bring, the people underestimated it. When it
struck, many of us were surprised of how it instantly destroyed and annihilated
lives, shelters and livelihood. Why? Right information was not propagated. If
people were educated on the storm surge’s consequences ahead of time, there
might be less casualties and deaths. I hope that people, after this disaster,
have learned to be more responsible by researching on what it is and by sharing
knowledge with others as well. The talk on hazards gave me us an idea that it
would largely help or even save people if research would be devoted to finding
ways to quickly disseminate right information as well as how to make it more
appealing to the public so it would be given more attention to (especially by
those people who care less).
