Pilipinas, you need to work

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Mangrove loss ‘left Burma exposed’

For anyone who follows storms, each storm is called something else depending on where it originated such as hurricanes for Atlantic Ocean storms, cyclones for Indian Ocean and typhoons for Pacific residents. They may have different names but the amount of destruction these storms can cause is all the same.

The cyclone that hit Myanmar is almost Biblical in it’s wrath. 23,000 dead with 40,000 more missing. Filipinos should be worried.

As we hit the months of June and July, it heralds the first months of the rainy season. Unlike western countries that have four seasons, in the Philippines it’s only wet and hot. And when it rains, it pours.

The Philippines is no stranger from typhoon calamities. There’s always one every year and the death toll has been less than a 1000 or so over the past years. But with Global warming making storms like these even deadlier, the Myanmar tragedy could hit our island nation.

Our denuded mountain forests and diminishing mangrove marshes, the Philippines lack these natural defenses against storms of this magnitude. We have been fortunate that only one major storm struck Manila, but even then the two hours that the eye just passed beyond the outskirts of the city caused widespread destruction and power loss for more than a week. What if more than one storm hits us in a season? I doubt that we are prepared for the worst.

Nature will hit back at the Philippines in a big way. We’ve just been able to dodge a lot of bullets lately and the next one wont be as easy. Should we start planting those mangrove forests? Of course! Better late than never. Just pray that we don’t have to wait for 23,000 deaths on our own soil to start working.