This article, co-written with Maria Khristine Alvarez, appeared as part of a symposium on the politics of flooding in Asian megacities, edited by Gavin Shatkin on the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Originally published on Facebook 1 October 2009, written in the wake of the massive flooding triggered by Typhoon Ondoy. This version was published 5 October 2009 on ABS-CBN News.com, as part of a special report on Typhoon Ketsana (Ondoy), and reprinted 27 October 2009 on Focus on the Global South’s Focus on the Philippines.
We need to bring public scrutiny to bear on the big, if hard-to-answer, issues of unsustainable urbanization and land use planning.
It comes as no surprise that public anger in the aftermath of the Ondoy disaster has focused on corruption and incompetence among government officials: on how Arroyo’s Le Cirque dinner could have paid for disaster response equipment; how her son was spotted stocking up on booze even as people were dying in the rising floodwaters; and how unscrupulous politicians were taking advantage of the situation by plastering their grinning mugs all over relief goods. It is, after all, easier to lay responsibilities on names and faces rather than on structural causes.
There is, however, a critical aspect of the issue that evades easy association with names and faces, and is consequently not addressed by the public debate: the problem of untrammeled, private sector-led urbanization. Continue reading “Who do we blame for untrammeled hyperurbanization in Manila?”
Kenneth Cardenas 