A tragic disaster mindset

HERE is no such thing as a natural disaster, Geographer and Anthropologist Neil Smith, once quipped. There are only human vulnerabilities that is a product of the alterations people made with their environment that natural occurrences like typhoon and earthquakes expose and reveal.

The twin disasters in Itogon, Benguet and the City of Naga, Province of Cebu in the wake of Typhoon Ompong were dozens remain buried in massive landslides with the body count expected to reach hundreds are stark reminders of this keen observation from the social scientist. Underneath the rubble where the homes and structures of the mining community lay buried together with their residents were also the abandoned mines of large-scale extractive corporations of the previous generations dating back to as far back as the American colonial era. The same can be said of the landslide in Naga City, Cebu. It was also the site of quarrying operations for big cement corporations in the area.

What ties the two incidents together is not only the destructive and massive typhoon that brought in unprecedented precipitation to the two areas though thousands of kilometers apart but also the shared vulnerabilities of these communities to disasters owing to the past and continuing operations of extractive industries within their vicinity. Thus, those killed and injured are not dealt with the unfortunate hand of fate but were actually placed in harm’s way and made vulnerable by extractive operations that earn super profits from the mineral resources that the cheap labor from the communities mine from the earth.

This understanding was seemingly lost to the president when he was heard to have said before grieving relatives in evacuation centers that these devastating and gruesome deaths were acts of God, whose unknown wisdom and will took away those hundreds of lives unceremoniously by burying them alive underneath tons of rubble. Once again, the message was to move on and accept the bitter and hard fate that befell our compatriots who were victims of the landslides in Benguet and Cebu. Burial assistance and a cash gift are then supposed to be distributed from the Office of the President to ease the suffering of the bereaved.

An elderly woman from Naga City, Cebu in the evacuation center stood up before the president and challenged this out-of-touch understanding of their predicament as seen in a video that is now circulating online. The woman reasoned that they do not actually need relief goods and cash assistance because she believed that they will eventually be able to stand on their own without resorting to these dole-outs from government.

Her greatest and most urgent concern, she continued, is to stop the continued operations of the quarrying site that endanger her family’s life and her community today and in the future. She then appealed to the president to help put a stop to the quarrying operations to prevent future landslides and other disasters.

It was actually a simple statement borne out of the woman’s experiential understanding of their predicament. Prior to the operations of limestone quarrying above their community, she recalls that they never experienced landslides such as this before even with stronger typhoons and rains. The real culprit, she said, must be the quarrying site.

Local wisdom in Itogon, Benguet is slowly coming out in social media bearing the same analysis. Underneath the town were miles and miles of underground tunnels from the defunct Benguet Mining Corporation and other foreign and local extractive enterprises who did not bother to rehabilitate their old mining sites. To this day, Benguet Mining still purchase ore from smallscale miners dozens of whom suffered the ultimate fate underground while creating profit for the company.

Duterte, despite his public pronouncements against mining, a campaign promise that remains unfulfilled and something that he has reneged on with the firing of Secretary Gina Lopez of DENR and his administration’s refusal to discuss socio-economic reforms in the context of the peace talks with the Left, refuses to look at things the same way as the community wisdom dictates.

His response to the brave woman was predictable and sad. Perhaps disarmed by the courage and sharp stance of the woman, he can only retort to the points she raised by questioning her person. She was apparently so smart and critical that she must be a member of the New People’s Army, according to Duterte - a revelation of the backward disaster mindset of government and at once an indication of where we can draw people-centered approaches to address human vulnerabilities in times of disaster.