RECALLING SENDONG:

Did you really understand what just happened?

ALL Typhoons in the Philippines passed this way, EXCEPT Sendong.

No one here recalls ever having a typhoon pass by here in his/her ENTIRE life.

VISAYAS

No typhoon ever. Until December 16-17, 2011

MINDANAO

Cagayan de Oro City

Iligan City

BUT Authorities were alerted about Sendongs path days before it came.

Do we blame Sendong for the deaths and devastation?

Hardly. Let me illustrate.

There was no preemptive evacuation despite the warnings nor the memory of the flooding in 2009

Clearly, Typhoon Sendong was expected to just pass by and life would return to normalcy

They forgot one thing: water flows down rapidly from denuded forests.
Cagayan de Oro City Iligan City Mandulog Denuded Catch Basin

Lanao del Sur

Bukidnon

And while it [catch basin of Cagayan River] encompasses 1,521 square kilometers of mountainous terrain, it occupies only 86 sq km of level area.
That is why it is also the citys main tourism resource: Because it moves down slope at a fast velocity, its water creates white-foam rapids so suitable for whitewater raftinga natural trait not all rivers exhibit.
We had been warned of Cagayan Rivers fury by Antonio Montalvan II, Philippine Daily Inquirer (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/116425/we-had-been-warned-ofcagayan-rivers-fury)

Unknown to us, the rainfall over at the Bukidnon side was greater. That rainfall had to naturally settle in its catch basin, and what a mammoth basin it turned out to be. That early dawn of Dec. 17, Macajalar Bay was on high tide. In all low-lying areas and elsewhere in the city, people were asleep in the dark. The combination was lethal. The rest is now history.
We had been warned of Cagayan Rivers fury by Antonio Montalvan II, Philippine Daily Inquirer (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/116425/we-had-been-warned-ofcagayan-rivers-fury)

In the grander scheme of things, these people were relatively lucky.

Picture from the Facebook Photo Album of Larry Macatol

ILIGAN CITY These are some of the logs and cut down trees that were carried by the flood to the city of Iligan. Along the way, it caused damage to houses and killed hundreds of people. Until now there could still be dead people below the piles of logs. (From the Facebook Photo Album posted by Francis Macatol, 23 Dec 2011

Logs washed downstream

Area declared as flood zone in Cagayan de Oro City, 2010

Images from Philippines: Mayor to defy President Aquino order to relocate residents out of flood zone (http://www.mikeinmanila.com/2011/12/22/philippines-mayor-to-defy-president-aquino-order-torelocate-residents-out-of-flood-zone/)

The same zone as pictured from the air on Dec 20, 2011

Images from Philippines: Mayor to defy President Aquino order to relocate residents out of flood zone (http:// www.mikeinmanila.com/2011/12/22/philippines-mayor-to-defy-president-aquino-order-to-relocate-residentsout-of-flood-zone/)

CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY WIPEOUT Rampaging waters from the Cagayan de Oro River swept away this entire community of some 400 households in Sitio Kala-Kala, Barangay Macasandig, in Cagayan de Oro City. BOBBY LAGSA/INQUIRER MINDANAO (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/113597/deadly-mix-for-disaster)

The tragedy that struck the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan was an event waiting to happen. It was foretold three years ago, but was dismissed by lawmakers as too alarmist. ~ Sendong disaster foretold 3 years ago by Kristine L. Alave, Philippine Daily Inquirer (http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/114171/sendong-disaster-foretold-3-years-ago)

Photo from the Facebook Photo Album posted by Francis Macatol

Photo from the Facebook Photo Album posted by Francis Macatol

Photo from the Facebook Photo Album posted by Francis Macatol

Did this have to happen?

Did this have to happen?

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/-depth/12/23/11/search-missing-sendong-victims-goes-online

Did this have to happen?

Logs washed downstream

Did this have to happen?

Images from Philippines: Mayor to defy President Aquino order to relocate residents out of flood zone (http://www.mikeinmanila.com/2011/12/22/philippines-mayor-to-defy-president-aquino-order-torelocate-residents-out-of-flood-zone/)

Keeping people out of hazardous areas is one thing. DO NOT DEFY IT!

Doing something about this is another

Cagayan de Oro City Iligan City Mandulog Denuded Catch Basin

Lanao del Sur

Bukidnon

What did we do in the last 30 years?

Cagayan de Oro City Iligan City Mandulog Denuded Catch Basin

Lanao del Sur

Bukidnon

But jarring this otherwise pleasant tableau were red-brown grids of degraded hillsides and heavy silt that turn riverbeds into eerie mud flats. Further upstream one is witness to the continuing

rape of primary-growth forests, in stiff

defiance of a logging ban in the country.
~ Lessons from Sendong by Neric Acosta, Philippine Star
(http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=761253&publicationSubCategoryId=63)

Trees are like HANDS that would catch the rain and deliver them back to our acquifers and rivers & prevent FLOODS.
~ Text & Illustration from Kenneth Carmelita MacatolEnriquez, City Engineer, Cebu City

Trees are like HANDS that would catch the rain and deliver them back to our acquifers and rivers & prevent FLOODS.
~ Text & Illustration from Kenneth Carmelita MacatolEnriquez, City Engineer, Cebu City

The forests we protect will protect us in turn

PROTECT THE FORESTS!

Somehow I recall that they taught us that in Plantation Elementary School.

Not hard to understand, isnt it?

Unless your livelihood depends on not understanding it.

TREES by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918) THINK that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth's sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in Summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

THANKS FOR WATCHING THE SLIDES. Lets make a difference. Pass these slides to everyone you know.

That enlightened leaders may one day make the enlightened decisions that the Filipino society sorely needs today.

I grew up in Bukidnon and spent 3 years in Cagayan de Oro City before finishing BS Agricultural Engineering major in Land and Water Resources at the University of the Philippines Los Banos. Marvin Macatol www.familyforkids.wordpress.com