blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

"Mindanaoan" posted this Twitpic of a weeping father cradling his dead daughter in the wake of the tragic floods that sank Cagayan de Oro city as a result of tropical storm Sendong (Washi) last Saturday evening. The little girl I presume is just a wee bit over two years of age. This is the age of temper tantrums and delightful innocence. Those of us who have children will know. The pain of small children taken from us at this age is unfathomable. And so the photo broke my heart into a million pieces and that too of Mindanaoan. But this is the nightmare that I am waking up to. Environmental catastrophe is now at hand and there are no easy solutions. Whether this be a flash flood (which is the most dangerous of natural hazards) or even the chronic air pollution poisoning Metro Manila, people will die and most tragically children will die. The photo is reminiscent of Roman Catholic iconography of the Mater Dolorosa  or the Sorrowful Mother. Dolorosum (neutral gender) is the ...

I received news of last Friday's 8.9 magnitude earthquake on Manila Bay since I was supposed to go on a boat and check my research sites. The skipper got a tsunami warning and so the boat ride was cancelled. At the office 30 minutes later, I was able to view in real time the arrival of the first tsunamis. In one video feed, I saw one town completely obliterated by the waves. Then came the videos of the unfolding Fukushima nuclear disaster, where the earthquake destroyed the reactors' backup power systems and that exploding nuclear reactor building. The exploding reactor building is now iconic. It permanently nukes the claim that nuclear power is disaster-proof and safe! Japan by destiny gives us reasons to really go No Nukes . The photos of the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are iconic and so is the mushroom cloud over Fukushima's nuclear reactor. Japan renounced war and nuclear weapons and perhaps Japan may renounce nuclear energy, the first industria...

Iloilo City- University of the Philippines Visayas campus - I arrived in Iloilo City exactly a day after Typhoon Frank (Fengshen) passed north of this city (on the first flight after the airport was reopened). While the storm hit Aklan province, Iloilo City bore the brunt of Frank's rainbands. Water was clearly dumped in the city sinking a majority of its districts in up to 4 meters of water. The road from the new international airport is littered with the remains of washed out houses and vehicles some of which were completely filled in with mud. Not a few of the cars were brand new. Evacuees line the road and many have begun the clean-up. One resident told me that the water just rose within five minutes leaving them caught unawares. The only good thing is that this happened during the day and if it did happen in the night,the death toll would have been horrible, says the cab driver who took me around. Iloilo is defined by two rivers and a geography the gives the city its name. Res...

George W Bush and Tony Blair crushed Saddam's Iraq in 2003 because of the purported existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). However there was no evidence that Saddam possessed stockpiles of WMD at the time of the Iraq invasion. The moral underpinning of the invasion was placed into question. In Burma, the Junta has largely refused the international aid to cyclone Nargis victims. Aid has been seized at the airport, the Burmese authorities have refused visas to aid workers. Millions of Burmese are in risk for dying of infectious diseases unless food and medical aid reaches them.The Burmese Junta is in a state of xenophobia that is destroying their own people. The UN has been pressed into action. It has tried persuasion and later condemnation of the Burmese regime but to no avail. The Security Council had authorized military interventions "police actions" in the past. If the powers need to it can be conveniently ignored like what the Americans and the British did in...