Virginia Moncrieff's Philippines Notebook: National Disaster Brings Death, Blame

[Louisiana1976]

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Saturday comes and so does tropical storm Ondoy (known internationally as Ketsana). It rained more that day than the storm that caused the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. The wind racketed around my apartment (safe on the 18th floor, safe in middle class Manila); the rain beat the crap out of the building.

It didn't stop. The terrible infrastructure in this city could not cope with the rain. Throughout the day, the news reported that there was flash flooding. It got worse. It turned into a national disaster as people tried to get away from the rising waters.

An overburdened city is an overburdened city and on Saturday regardless of whether you lived in a shanty town (first and most badly hit) or in a utilities-paying neighborhood (collateral damage and lots of it), it was time to pay the price. People were literally washed away. There was something so poignant about seeing people clinging to umbrellas as they waded, armpit high in water, as if the last protection they had against death was holding onto a useless piece of nylon.

Blame is an important part of the process. There has not been civil, military or natural disaster in any country that I can recall when questions have not been asked afterward about government inability to deal with the consequences of rain, riots, or terrorism.

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