Flooding in Times of Rain in the Philippines

FLOODING IN TIMES OF RAIN IN THE PHILIPPINES

“A flood occurs when water overflows or inundates land that’s normally dry. Mostly floods take hours or even days to develop, giving residents ample time to prepare or evacuate. These flash floods can be extremely dangerous, instantly turning a babbling brook into a thundering wall of water and sweeping everything in its path downstream” (Anonymous, n.d.). In Metro Manila, for instance, classified its flooding into three types (Liongson & Tabios, 2000), namely: Local street floods which can result in light property damage but causes huge traffic jams, Moderate floods which can cause significant damage to public and private property, with exceptional cases of injury or loss of life and serious traffic problems making impassable to vehicles and Regional floods which incapacitates the activities of various cities or towns for a day or so and provoked by high tide and storm surges.

“On average, eight or nine tropical storms make landfall in the Philippines each year, with another ten entering Philippine waters. Situated in a vast expanse of warm ocean water on the western rim of the Pacific Ocean, the Philippines is the most exposed country in the world to tropical storms. With more than 7,000 islands, the coastline is vulnerable to storm surges. Eight of the top 10 deadliest cyclones to hit the Philippines had a death toll reaching between 1,000 and 2,000 people. The deadliest storm on record was Thelma, which killed around 5,100 in 2001. Authorities fear as many as 10,000 people have died in Typhoon Haiyan (known in the Philippines as Yolanda), which would make it the Philippines’ deadliest storm ever” (Brown, 2013).

Filipinos expect the yearly problem of flooding that would affect them terribly, which sometimes costs many lives, due to the volume of rainfall that is brought by the storms hitting the Philippines. The water piles up and flows over the streets and even enters houses or buildings. Why does the water pile up? Why does it not subside immediately after the rainfall? According to Inquirer.net, experts say deadly flood that strikes the Philippines are less a natural disaster but more on man-made disaster that are poor planning, lax enforcement and political self-interest. Since it is described as man-made disasters, we may say that the Filipinos may be the answer to resolve the problem. To lessen the flooding in the Philippines, it may be answered thru different man-made solutions. Meaning, man-made solutions are constructed and performed by human beings.

The three different man-made solutions that could lessen the flooding in the Philippines are: proper solid waste management, greening the environment by tree planting and proper maintenance of the drainage systems. First, the practice of proper solid waste management is one of the key factors to solve the flooding in the Philippines. Solid wastes are the things we throw from our homes, schools, office, factories, malls, etc. When all these are not properly disposed, it clogs our drainage systems. “Waste disposal is a necessary part of an integrated systems of managing solid waste, one in which waste minimization and recycling initiatives