The ordeal and the danger are far from over

The world hailed the resilience of the survivors of supertyphoon Yolanda. But there may be little appreciation of the fact that until now they are still fighting a battle for survival.

The Yolanda ordeal is far from over. Indeed, the danger of a sequel disaster part-two to the November 8 rampage lurks: a social and economic meltdown.

A collapse of order and collective life from the strain of continued human suffering may happen, once rebuilding stumbles and securing anew a decent shelter with simple comforts and ambiance of home end up in prolonged frustration. The disaster victims have to get settled to lead productive lives.

That is why the construction of the controversial bunkhouses should have been carefully thought of, or better still thoroughly discussed with the folks who were supposed to live in them. Their say on the make and circumstance of the temporary dwellings should have been given primary importance.

Right now, most of the survivors of Yolanda are in a state of suspended animation. The homeless and needy idly await assistance in such hard-hit areas, for example, as Barangays San Miguel, Magay, Calogcog and Sta. Cruz in Tanauan where so many deaths occurred and clusters of tents have replaced the old dwellings, or Bgys. Ormocay, Wilson and Camanse in Mayorga farther down south where homes have been demolished and folks are exposed to the harsh beating of alternating rain and sun. The wait and inaction are becoming torturous as no help seems forthcoming. It is a state fraught with perils.

If paralysis and the slide into harsher conditions of existence are not arrested, the situation can deteriorate to a point where neither peace nor harmony prevails anymore, where communities break down in chaos or flight, and engagement in livelihood of any kind no longer washes.

Something like the spree of looting right after Yolanda’s fury can explode. The restive quiet now could be the proverbial lull before the storm.

A complementary threat is the retrogression of local economies. Two months after Yolanda, 80 to 90 percent of pre-disaster businesses especially in the regional commercial hub of Tacloban have not come back. Business slowdown or ultimate shutdown with establishment owners either facing bankruptcy, finding it impossible to resume, or deciding to leave, can slip towards stagnation.

If not rescued, agriculture also can lapse into stagnation having absorbed great damage particularly in coconut production – Eastern Visayas’ top provider of cash and economic driver.

As business activity has dwindled, workforces presently have nowhere to find jobs or employment. This affects market, for folks cannot buy goods or services with no income, or with minimal cash circulating around. The consequence is that production all the more constricts.

A point may be reached where any production is no longer viable.

Currently, basic commodities continue to be in short supply, while their prices skyrocket. The prices of sugar, egg, meat, fish, cooking oil, soap, kerosene, and anti-mosquito coil, for instance, have gone up twice or thrice their pre-Yolanda level.

The condition of stagnation being coupled with soaring inflation creates the disastrous phenomenon called stagflation. It is a sure-fire formula for a cataclysmic social upheaval.

With the perception or illusion that things are normalizing, the scenario may be hard to believe much less think of. But it was so with dire warnings of a category four typhoon that the people brushed aside, conditioned by old mindsets. They thought it was yet something they can cope, just like in the past.

As experience went, Yolanda happened to be no longer what dire weather disturbances used to be. No one was ready for the impact when the strongest wind on record to hit land made landfall bringing ashore seven-meter high waves. The extreme calamity foisted extreme social consequences.

The usual is not the normal anymore. The world is now in what former US Vice President Al Gore calls the “period of consequences,” the payback time for man’s environmental sins. The normal in weather patterns has changed: much heavier rainfalls, more violent typhoons breeding in warmer oceans, higher chances of landslides and flash floods occurring over regions that did not encounter them before.

Yolanda was something that did not fit into regular reality. The people did not get it that they live already in a much altered environment, in a world haunted by climate change with freakier moods of nature.

What goes with the environment goes with society. Communities absorb graver effects – greater deaths, huger loss of property, and more massive demolition of infrastructure, fouling of weathers brings. They also have to contend with unprecedented disruption of social and economic life.

The fallout from the devastation of Yolanda, as far as the latter is concerned, can endure for years, or can finally spell the sudden demise of a way of living.

Hours or even days before the supertyphoon struck, official weather forecast did not lack in trying to impress the severity of what was coming, which scientific experts described in one layman’s word, “delubyo” (deluge).

Malacanang interrupted programs on radio and television for the president to go on air on the evening of November 7 with the appeal to take the apocalyptic scenario seriously.

But scepticism coupled by misplaced confidence overrode warnings. Residents did not take the repeated prodding to move out of hazard zones. The price was very dear. Deaths climbed to thousands, mixing up with the mind boggling destruction of everything along the disaster’s path.

The steep price of not taking measures to deflect extreme outcomes has taught no longer to leave to chance their possibility. This should be so with the prospect of a second generation tragedy resulting from festering problems bred by Yolanda.