Power of the People for Change: Disyembre 2013

Miyerkules, Disyembre 25, 2013

Greetings this Yuletide Seson

Linggo, Disyembre 22, 2013

Letter to Pres. Aquino and Secretary Abaya

Open Letter to His Excellency Benigno Simeon Aquino III,

President of the Philippines

and Honorable Joseph Emilio Abaya, Secretary

Department of Transportation and Communications

Dear President Aquino and Secretary Abaya:

Between 1989-1990, we began the advocacy for a Philippine safety agency that led to the passage of the Republic Act to create the NTSB - National Transportation Safety Board.

Shown below is the reconstruction of the briefing on the need to operationalize the National Transportation Safety Board. We revised the briefing over and over again. The updating of the voluminous data on accidents over land, to include actuarial and statistical computations of the probabilities of new accidents for extended, extrapolated periods, is not included since it would be too tasking for us and we do not have the resources nor are equipped any longer to undertake the job.

In the past, we were fortunate to be working with a foreign counterpart - the Harris Corporation Florida USA, a conglomerate with over 100 companies under its wings, that allowed us to opportunity to campaign for the privatization of the then Air Transportation Office's ATS (Air Traffic Service) as well as to push for the creation of the Philippines' transport safety agency.

- Original proponents for National Transport Safety Board 1994
Read more from here

Martes, Disyembre 10, 2013

Reconstruction and Recovery after Yolanda

The World Bank says that timely reconstruction will help lessen the impact of super typhoon Yolanda. Before we digest these words, it is also significant to look back into the past. There was a time in fairly recent past when NBC news anchor Brian Williams sounded like a broken record repeating the words over and over again that: Aviation in the United States of America is dying. This is now true with Philippine air line companies and selected several other businesses in the Philippines right at this very moment.

During the post-Yolanda period, only at least one air line company that very enterprisingly lowered its passenger rates (presumably including for cargo) per seat-mile, notwithstanding that the Philippine government ordered that a number of fees and charges being levied in the aviation sector will be waived, among other behests in order to lessen the burden for victims of the calamity and those that had to fly to ground zero to participate in disaster relief and recovery operations . . . .

Dire is a weak description for the situation that a select number of businesses in the Philippines are in right now. More > >

Letter Invitation to World GeoHazard experts

December 9, 2013

Dear Sir / Madame,

Greetings!

This is to formally invite your attention to our determination to hold the international conference on geohazard mapping and relevant environment issues. Our group decided to launch a campaign in 2009 for sustainable crisis hazards mapping and relevant environmental concerns after returning from Mindanao, Philippines following the end of the effort in ending the highly expensive hotel billeting by Juma’a Abu Sayyap of selected staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from Switzerland (Andreas Notter), Italy (Eugenio Vagni) and Philippines (Mary Jane Lacaba). More > >

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Philippines" Serious Quandary Over Lethal Floods

by the Resource Recovery Movement, Center for Human and Society

In the recent period, floods plagued a considerable area, encompassing broad sections across the globe.

Heavy recent flooding in India and Serbia, China, Japan among many other areas around the world

With heavy inundations such as these that can often kill with their own sheer power by drowning,
is there still a need for the water to be poisonous, toxic and very much hazardous to health or even deadly enough to kill?

In the Philippines, not the Secretary of the Department of National Defense now a bit too advanced in years unlike many past defense secretaries who braved calamities and got wet and dirty on the ground, but the helmsman of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) is a mite too busy nowadays. The chief is extremely tied up in many corners that at most times the poor disaster response executive does not even know where to plant his foot next.

Yet it is an inescapable Catch-22 situation. If the new chief of the Philippine Office of Civil Defense and the Secretariat of the NDRRMC follows the examples of his bosses, just stay put and let things unveil all by themselves, the people will be angry.

If the NDRRMC head appears very mobile and busy, the people are still not going to be appeased. They will be just as angry anyway. No option is a better one, even that of balancing between not doing anything and making an effort to be hyperactive.

A senseless new tragedy most recently hit the Philippines - not so much a tragedy as thousands of helpless citizens getting killed.

The powerful storm caused a maritime vessel Maharlika II in Cebu to drown, leaving as many as more than one hundred casualties. As of this writing, 70 persons are missing due to the tragedy.

All over the nation: Floods and landslides, destroyed crops, dead farm animals, ruined houses, buildings, vital installations and much more other forms of damage

A really sensible government will take every means to prevent people from getting caught in floods. Sadly enough, this is never true in the Philippines and not in many places around the world. They will simply snort: Expensive solutions! No one specially me needs them! So they let whole communities drown or suffer getting submerged waist or neck-deep in murky, life-threatening floodwaters

Both children and adults brave the waters in floods. No one puts the fear in their hearts that doing so is extremely dangerous to their health and the effects may only be felt after a long time.

Posted Under Themes:

#MarioPH, #Fong-Wong #Fung-Wong, #Flood, #Philippines, #FloodControl, #RescuePH, #Rescue,

#Ondoy, #Yolanda, advanced planning, Albay Basin, Aquino, Ayala, business, calamities, calamity, Camarines Basin, canned goods, catch basin, Central Luzon Region, chemical, Climate Change, clusters, collection of STP fees, commercial establishments, damage wetland ecosystems, death, deep in water, Department of National Defense, devastation of riverine ecosystems, disasters, diseases, Divisoria, effluent, flood control, flood-borne epidemic, government offices, graft and corruption, health hazard, life-threatening, Lopez, Lucio Tan Foremost Farms, malls and factories Pasig River, Manila Water, Manila Waterworks Sewerage Systems, Marikina Basin, Maynilad, more than 10 billions of STP fee collection, National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council, Philippines, poision, preventive, pro-active, release dam water, sale of relief goods for Yolanda, Secretary Voltaire T. Gazmin, septage, septage treatment plant, septic tank, sewage treatment, sewerage, solution to flood, spend public money, STP, surface runoff water, Tacloban Basin, toxin, Tropical Storm, Tutuban Mall, typhoon, Undersecretary Alexander Pama.

Climate Change fight distracting governments

After the 2005 Hyogo Conference, scientists urged the United Nations to consider that the various conflicting issues surrounding Climate Change is "distracting governments" from providing solutions to threats of disasters worldwide.

"The current UN focus on "fighting climate change," as illustrated in the Nov. 27 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report, is distracting governments from adapting to the threat of inevitable natural climate changes, whatever forms they may take. National and international planning for such changes is needed, with a focus on helping our most vulnerable citizens adapt to conditions that lie ahead. Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems."

A letter written to UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon ventilated sentiments of scientists and technology experts on the issue of focusing deeper into finding means to adapt to the threat of climate change.

Thank you UN, ICRC,supportive Countries and Relief Groups

Thank you ICRC and Philippine Red Cross for all your efforts after #Yolanda in the affected Regions of the Philippines! More power to you! Godspeed and God bless you!

Thank you United Nations and United Nations OCHA (Director Khalikov), United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (Secretary Margareta Wahlstrom) for relief and recovery assistance, for your Flash Appeal world wide and to Excellency Ban Ki Moon for taking the time off his very busy schedule to visit Tacloban City! May God bless all of you and more power to you!

A very warm Merry Christmas and Happy New Year greetings to all your people, officers and workers all over the world!!! We love you all together with all those kind and generous ones from a myriad of countries and relief organizations that shared time, resources, blood sweat and tears for the victims of recent Philippine disaster!

One Festival Manila 2014

O N E

One is a rock music festival originally planned for April 2010 but was shelved due to the postponement of the Hazards Mapping and Environment Summit (HMES) 2010 - a sister project.

The HMES project is now revived and rescheduled to December 4-12, 2014, before the March conference in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture of the United Nations called the UN Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction.

On the fifth day of the hazards mapping and environment conference, One will be staged at Rizal Park, Manila beginning at past 5:00 pm Saturday, December 13, 2014 until the next day Sunday December 14, 2014.

One of the unique features of One is the use of biometric tickets, the technology for which will be negotiated up to final contract with a provider from the United Kingdom.

One is a concern of Center for Human and Society (Centre di Humanes et Societas, Inc.) a non-profit organization registered in the Philippines. The organizer's advocacy is pushing for and actively participating in the creation of resettlement sites far away from the ground zero where thousands of Tacloban City residents died as well as building Memorials for those that died in the places where the remains of those that passed away during the Category 5 Tropical Cyclone Haiyan codenamed Yolanda. These memorials will be where the relatives of those that died can express grief for their family, loved ones and bosom friends. Read more from here