The Day After Christmas

"Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don’t have enough to eat. What good is there in your saying to them, “God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!” – if you don’t give them the necessities of life?"

-James 2:15-16

When you're doing research, you're always supposed to be prepared for unexpected events that can turn everything you thought you had set up on its head. Planning to research informal settlers only to find that they've been forcibly cleared out of your research area already. Going to research organic agriculture with small farmers only to find that none of them have any idea what organic agriculture is (or are already farming organically and just don't know it). Or, when you're studying natural disasters, having a natural disaster practically destroy the place you were planning to research. It's easy to take several steps back and say "hey, an actual disaster hitting during my research? This couldn't be better!". But it's a lot harder to appreciate that just after the fact when you're cleaning out your flooded apartment or walking through neighborhoods where people's houses have essentially been turned into twigs. 

Typhoon aftermath, Bulan Town, Sorsogon

Typhoon Nona (called Melor internationally) was predicted to hit Sorsogon on December 14, 2015 as a Category 2 typhoon, meaning winds of about 100 MPH. Instead, it unexpectedly strengthened and hit as a Category 4, with winds of 145 MPH. Because of this, signals weren't raised as high as they should have been until the last minute, and many people didn't take the mandatory evacuation as seriously as they should have. Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Offices (MDRRMOs) implemented a forced evacuation, but as the typhoon strengthened unexpectedly, were late in sending teams out, leading to some of them (including mine) to get stuck outside in the height of the storm. Meanwhile, since evacuation teams are usually volunteers only, they were only available in larger towns, not in the countryside, where fatalities occurred. 

The official death toll from Typhoon is 40, including 3 in my province of Sorsogon. Since the actual death toll here is actually 6, I'm sure that's a gravely understated number. Nonetheless, the fact that the massive death tolls of past storms was avoided is a tribute to the fact that the Philippines is learning all the right lessons about disaster preparedness, at least in the short term. Most of the people who should have evacuated actually did evacuate, even though many of the evacuation centers themselves lost roofs or were otherwise destroyed. The government itself here has been as on top of the recovery as it can be, given the limited funding available. 5% of each municipality's budget is devoted to disaster preparedness and relief, which is severely lacking, especially since the poorer areas with less funding tend to be the worst hit. Since Nona didn't have the charismatic death toll of storms like Typhoon Haiyan, nor did it hit wealthy areas like Manila, it's been largely overlooked by national and international donors. 

Evacuation camp, Bulan, Sorsogon

No matter what happens in the Philippines, people always want their picture taken.

The problem with disaster preparedness is that, no matter how much you educate people on the dangers of natural hazards, carry out evacuation drills, and hold seminars on swimming skills or rescuing important documents, you can't fix the single most important thing that devastates people in disasters: poverty. Poor Sorsoganons know all about where to evacuate, and where to get information on coming typhoons. But that doesn't change the fact that they live in frail houses whose destruction is practically guaranteed during a big typhoon. It won't give people more money to save so that they have enough to eat after disasters. And it certainly won't make people leave their houses near the ocean, dangerous as it is, as that's their only access to their livelihoods if they're fishermen. 

Inconveniently (on several different levels), I had to go to Manila the day after Nona hit for some mandatory meetings. While there, I could only look at the pictures Facebook friends posted of the devastation and wish I could be there myself (not that I'd have been of much use if I were). My first day back, I headed to Bulan, one of the worst-hit municipalities in the province. The way there, driving through mountain areas that were previously verdant and green, was a terrifying preview. Many areas looked like New England in November rather than a tropical rainforest; trees completely denuded of leaves, and the ground a mix of broken stumps and flattened homes. Bulan town itself wasn't quite as devastated, as most of the buildings were made of concrete and better able to withstand high winds. As soon as I left the center of town, however, I quickly realized why this was the area much of the relief funding had been going. 

A couple of locals showed me around their neighborhood, which had the misfortune of being a strip of houses along a road between an airfield and rice paddies. No real shelter from the wind for miles, and not a concrete roof in sight. Some houses were almost intact, and some still retained most of their original form, but the majority simply consisted of a roof resting on the ground, the walls lying in splinters around it. The most miraculous thing- there were still people living there. Laundry hung on downed power lines, beds shoved under the stronger part of the roof, and bedraggled children's toys lying in the sun to dry. Houses may not be permanent, but life goes on.

Who said living rooms need roofs?

Besides poverty, the other thing disaster preparedness can't fix in the short term is economic vulnerability and livelihoods. The threat of typhoons won't stop someone from farming coconuts, even though after Typhoon Nona coconut plantations won't see any revenues for at least two years, three in the worse cases. Some trees are snapped clean off, the fruit blows off others, and nuts that stay on the tree are spoiled  in the rain and flooding. Bananas and other fragile trees, meanwhile, might as well be grass in front of lawnmower. But Sorsogon is one of the prime coconut-exporting areas in the country, and nobody will give that up.

What happens when you grow papayas in a typhoon-prone area.

Being confronted with your privilege is never a comfortable experience, but being a wealthy foreigner in the aftermath of disaster is even more uncomfortable. People either look at me suspiciously or thank me profusely, thinking that I've come there to survey the damage and later return with a big bag of cash, or perhaps the lumber and corrugated iron they so desperately need to repair their homes. I'd rather get the suspicious glares honestly, because there are few things worse than knowing that there's essentially nothing you can do to help out. I can donate a little money, (which I have) and try and raise awareness about the disaster (which I haven't done nearly as well as I should be). Or I can pretend that my research here on disasters will help, but in the unlikely event I reach some breakthrough finding that influences local policy, that won't matter for years, and even then only very marginally. My whole presence here is problematic in many ways, but especially after a disaster.

But as I said in my last post, I don't want to make this about my own struggles, as they're trivial compared to others I'm seeing. 

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One of the funny things about typhoons is that it's really hard to predict how damaging they'll be, at least not only based on wind strength. In May of last year, Typhoon Dodong hit northern Luzon at Category 5 with winds of 160 MPH, but only caused 2 deaths, as well as about $360,000 in damage. Meanwhile, Ondoy hit the Philippines in 2009 as a tropical storm but killed 670 people and caused almost $250 million in damage (For comparison, Nona's total was at least $64 million in damages). There are so many variables to be considered- how much rain has there been already? Soil already saturated from previous storms is the biggest cause of catastrophic flooding and landslides such as those caused by Ondoy. Does it come during the habagat (southwest monsoon winds) or amihan (northeast winds)? Storms in the rainy habagat are usually far more catastrophic? Is it during high tide or low tide? Storm surges such as those that killed thousands of people in Typhoon Yolanda usually happen in high tide. And other things are even harder to predict, such as the direction the strongest winds will come from when the strongest part of the storm passes over (that's the problem with spiraling winds). Those trees around your house might protect you from the strongest wind, or they might be blown over and destroy your house, or worse (many of the fatalities from typhoons come from people killed by falling trees, often while inside houses they thought were strong enough to withstand the winds).

In the case of Nona, Sorsogon got lucky in some ways. It hit during the amihan, which usually lasts from September to May, and during an unexpectedly dry December. It also happened in low tide, saving houses that otherwise would have been swept away in a storm surge (though many of these were destroyed anyway by high winds coming from the open ocean). Perhaps even better, economically speaking, was that it happened just before rice planting, meaning that the damage to rice crops that are the backbone of food security here was far less than it would have been otherwise. Still, typhoons are fickle. I've seen some houses built directly on, or even above the ocean, made of bamboo and thatched roofs, that were seemingly untouched. Meanwhile, hundreds of supposedly strong evacuation centers, such as schools or gymnasiums, had their roofs torn off or were destroyed by falling trees. 

On Christmas day, I did a second visit to an affected area, this time to the hometown of Perla, an employee of the NGO I'm working with here. The town of San Rafael is in the municipality of Pilar, in northwestern Sorsogon. It's one of the many tiny settlements crusting the edges of Pilar Bay, a shallow inlet from Sorsogon Bay that serves as a refuge from storms and a transportation hub for ferries going to other provinces. Like most coastal villages, it can only be reached by a ride on a bangka, the outrigger boat that's one of the symbols of the Philippines. It's a ride through bright blue waters and past beaches that wouldn't look out of place in tourist brochures for better-known locales; just one of the many things that makes me suspect that Sorsogon isn't too far off from a major tourism boom.

Part of the purpose of the visit was to distribute some relief goods to the women's organization in San Rafael, courtesy of my NGO, the IRDF. IRDF has been distributing relief goods in many areas, but I'm generally not allowed to join, given that most will assume I'm the representative of some larger foreign body there to save them. I see that in abundance as I'm shown around the town, with many people calling me to take pictures of their houses, as if the picture is somehow going to help fix it. That night, the barangay captain (think town mayor) thanks me profusely over a bottle of gin, so pleased that I've come. I want to scream not to thank me- I'm not doing anything useful there, and I feel like an impostor. But I can't bring myself to do it not even with the gin fogging up my head.

One thing that Filipinos repeatedly tell me proudly is that they're the "happiest people in the world". "No matter what happens, we're still smiling", one friend told me. And it's true, no matter how devastating Nona was, people are still smiling and laughing and drinking (it's a fishing village, after all). It's truly amazing that, no matter how many terrible things can come their way–and the Philippines has been witness to more that its fair share of horrible things–, they keep smiling. One of the biggest parts of it is faith. Nary a household I've surveyed here has neglected to tell me they pray before and after a typhoon, and thank God that they surveyed. And it makes sense; no matter what happens to them, they've accepted God into their hearts and can be secure in that fact. As a non-Christian (though a fairly religious non-Christian), it's a strange thing to me, but one I'm learning to appreciate more and more in the face of disaster. It's not to say I don't have mixed feelings, but it's a good subject for its own post. 

San Rafael was one of the villages unlucky enough to have its main evacuation site destroyed in the typhoon. Though schools are made of concrete, their metal walls are often poorly held-down, leaving them at the mercy of high winds. In this case, the school had the bad luck to be constructed on top of a hill, no shelter from the furious winds. Schools in the province had to cancel final exams because of the storm, but seeing the remains of books and papers strewn across the ground here made me wonder how they would continue class at all. As someone working in disaster risk management, it's easy to make the immediate judgment that everyone should evacuate their homes when the government tells them to. But when the evacuation sites sometimes are no safer than the homes people are leaving, you begin to understand the hesitation. 

Disadvantage of building your school on top of a hill: guaranteed destruction in a typhoon. Advantage of building your school on top of a hill: great view, especially when the typhoon knocks down the big trees.

This guy really, really wanted a picture on top of his roof.

The party goes on for Christmas; even if there are no houses, there's still gin.

Repairs already happening: weaving a new roof from palm leaves

I always joke that I can tell how many foreigners there are in a given place by how people react to me. In the wealthiest parts of Manila, I'm basically just ignored, or looked at a little judgmentally when in places known for white men looking for prostitutes or new wives (to be fair, I give other white men there the same looks, for the same reason). Near my home in Sorsogon City, there are the daily calls of "hey Joe!", teenage girls giggling whenever I pass by, and little kids wanting a high five. When in a place like San Rafael, which probably hasn't seen an American since it was actually part of America, that means every child in the village (and a good portion of the adults at first, too) following me around everywhere I go. At first they run away giggling when I turn around, but eventually warm up to me, especially when the camera comes out. 

My entourage.

Probably the only selfie I'll post on this blog.

There are worse places to live.

The next day brings more visits to typhoon-affected communities, to distribute relief goods and take some pictures of the damage. Going to all these houses just to photograph them seems oddly voyeuristic, as if I'm just using people's suffering for my own advantage. Not that I'll get any monetary benefits off this, nor am I using it to raise money. And yet is somehow feels a little like stealing. But people are still more than happy to show me their houses- or what's left of them- even when they know I won't be magically returning with more building materials. 

Another damaged school. Somehow people are constantly deciding it's a good idea to put them on top of hills with no shelter from high winds.

You know it's bad when your house is suddenly 2-dimensional.

Bidding me farewell

It's a month and a half after the typhoon now, and life is more or less back to normal. Fewer and fewer houses I survey now have damage, and people's incomes are beginning to rebound (except for coconut farmers). Life goes on, and when this sort of thing happens every few years, Sorsoganons take it in stride. And yet, it's hard to just shrug and carry on when this sort of thing happens so frequently, and is getting stronger with climate change, environmental degradation, and expanding populations, even as disaster preparedness measures improve. The real long-term solution is poverty reduction through sustainable development. Now if only that were as easy to do as it were to propose.