Foretold Tragedy: The Maguindanao Massacre

It was written as early as 2004 by author Ezky that journalists will be victims of bloody terror killings.  The massacre in Buluan town, Maguindanao may be election violence-related, but it is a terrorist act no less.  It is a footnote to the presentation by Ezky that members of the media will not be spared from the bloodthirsty terrorists, whether in Mindanao or elsewhere.  While the author is not necessarily saying it for the first time since journalists have been known to have suffered execution at the hands of terror groups, in this case the author is saying that journalists en masse were hoarded and killed like animals.  The same way the alleged Ampatuan private army killed the Mangudadatus and the media in Maguindanao in what is now known as the Maguindanao massacre.

Recently, Harvard University Hazard Institute (HHI) and John Carroll University experts led by Dr. Patrick Meier and Dr. Jen Ziemke partnered in organizing an event called International Conference on Crisis Mapping (ICCM 2009) in Cleveland USA on October.  Among the underlying issues for organizing the crisis mapping conference was the study of Dr. Ziemke on violence against innocent civilians. Manual map coding as part of the study was done by Dr. Ziemke to denote about forty years of conflict in an African country.

Dr. Ziemke’s findings are about the tendency of armed individuals and groups to commit violence against civilians when they are losing power.  Her case study was Angola.  She may have been saying the same about Colombia, Iraq, about many other countries in Africa and other parts of the world.

Are the Ampatuans losing power?  If they are and Dr. Ziemke’s findings are right, the political clan must have been losing power a long time ago.  The mass burial ground where the journalists were uncovered is notoriously called in Maguindanao as “Killing Fields.”  Among other things, the Ampatuans are suspect in the killings of many other enemies allegedly including a colonel in the uniformed services.  Like the others, the colonel’s vehicle was also buried in that same site.  Whether the equipment used was the same backhoe with the Ampatuan letterings in them, is no longer material.  The fact is, that site is full of bodies and is literally a mine of buried automobiles.

Perhaps the national security officials missed this part.  Although they were made aware of the Ziemke doctrine months before the Buluan Massacre, they did not have the intelligence that the Ampatuans are indeed suffering from pangs of anxiety over impending defeat.  What they knew about the incident was posthumous data, and really too late to make any judgment calls. At the time when rape and murder was taking place and the bodies were being mangled, all the authorities knew was that there was hostile boarding by the MNLF Tornado Command of the vehicles of the Mangudadatus and media persons.  No information about the bloodletting.  And yet it was known all over Maguindanao, including among the Mangudadatu clan that there will be violent acts that will be heaped upon them by the Ampatuans.

It will appear thus that the massacre was bound to happen.  In the South, among the tribal groups, there is an abnormal  cultural feature called the “ridu.”  It is similar to the vendetta, or blood feud between warring clans (or tribes) in other societies.  Muslim tribes take “ridu” very seriously and only put an end to it when well-meaning third parties initiate negotiations and settlement between the warring parties.

In this case, the “ridu” was brought a notch higher.  Supposedly, the Ampatuans were not expected to harm women.  And furthermore, there was no justification for involving media persons in the carnage.  But the act happened just the same and the women were even raped.

It is even claimed that the sister of Mayor Toto Mangudadatu while being raped by a prime suspect, stabbed the alleged rapist-murderer with her ball point pen in an area around the midsection.  Compelling evidence if the wound actually is there.  But this is all water under the bridge.  What happened will not bring back the victims to their loved ones.  And nowhere in history will journalists ever be safe again.  Along with many innocent civilians in this and selected other areas in Mindanao or elsewhere that there is serious conflict, as Ezky had many years ago foretold.

In the time of Estrada, serious talk going around in international circles was that Mindanao will become another Afghanistan.  It was even made a subject of a large international conference held in Mandarin Hotel with the people of Erap proudly receiving all the attention as the potential victim of Afghanistan-like terrorist mayhem and atrocities.  And the big brother role of the US will go to the Australians being the next door neighbors of the country and being that the Aussies can easily bring in troops to Mindanao for “humanitarian assistance.”

That is sheer bullshit.  Mindanao will not be Afghanistan.  Not if the people in this country will be wise to tell the ogres to stay the hell away and leave us in peace.  The solution is to remove the source of the hostility and the means with which to commit these barbaric atrocities.  That is easier said than done.  But it has just got to be done despite that ingenious  plan to turn Mindanao into a bigger killing field.

Techo Green, Techno Tree: What Power Will Protect in the Future

The powerful will advocate the protection of the techno tree, the tree of the future.

The powerful will water the techno tree, talk to it, play music to it, cry to it, laugh to it, smile, whistle, sing to it, massage it, hug it and looove it very much until it grows and becomes more tree like, below. Then their children can play below and around it.

The HMES 2010 letter to UN Secretary General

October 31, 2009

HIS EXCELLENCY
BAN KI-MOON
Secretary General
United Nations

Dear Mr. Secretary General:

Greetings!

Every 5th of June since 1972 is commemorated by the United Nations as the World Environment Day.

In 2010-2011, scientists report that there will be a solar maximum that has not occurred since fifty years ago as reported in this article from Science@NASA:

a (solar) storm is coming–the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958. Read more about it here

This and other factors will result in major disasters during the period in question. Our group of professionals advocating environment protection and disaster damage diminution respectfully request the United Nations to support our effort to organize a Geo Hazard Mapping and Environment Summit in 2010 and we are determined that this gathering be convened in Manila, Philippines.

In this connection, may we respectfully request the following:

1. United Nations and its concerned departments participate in the Summit and help in organizing said event
2. The Year 2010 be declared as the International Geo Hazard Mapping Year
3. The month of April 2010 be declared as the International Disaster Risk Reduction Month; and finally,
4. The date of April 17, 2010 be declared as the first World Hazards Awareness Day.

That these declarations be formally announced in Manila prior to the Summit.

Thank you ever so much! Mabuhay!!!

Respectfully yours,

Organizers HMES 2010

The psycho-social issues in DRR

During a small group (round table) meeting in Quezon City at the residence of poet and writer Rolly Carbonell, Author, poet,on forthcoming hazards from climate change and the solar super storm in 2012-2013, everyone shared their their ideas on various psycho-social issues that need to be considered about this event in the near future.

Initially, the group discussed the impact of the tsunami in Thailand and Indonesia, Bangladesh et al, Hurricane Katrina in the US, Typhoon Ondoy in the Philippines.

The Convenor of the conference, Sen. Edgar U. Ilarde, said that there will even be bigger catastrophes come 2012 and 2013, when the phenomenon of the solar climax or solar maximum takes place.  This will be in the form of a magnetic storm or a solar super storm that has devastating effects on both humans and more potently upon satellites, electronics, communications and many other devices powered by electricity.

On the other hand, Author, poet, philosopher George Sison, said:

The way we approach disaster, those in the past and especially those that are forthcoming, it almost looks like we brought these things upon ourselves.

George was saying that as if by mute agreement, we all collectively invoke disaster and will calamities to wreak damage upon ourselves and loved ones. Our conventional conscious acts and thinking either make or help make storms and earthquakes to happen. This is a dangerous thing to do. Psychically inviting peril and death.

George was also saying that we, as a people that are called Filipinos, are the only ethnic group that apparently suffer from negative karmic vibrations that in selected places of the world, once identified as Filipinos, we are discriminated against.  In George’s experience, he says he was extremely humiliated in an airport when someone asked who were from the Philippines and segregated all those that raised their hands from  the rest and told to occupy a corner so as to be processed longer than the rest of the travelers.

Such negative karma in a collective, George says, if powerful enough can also be contributory to events that happen in the environment. Together with the negative psychic energy of many others in the rest of the planet, we could even trigger bigger, much more tremendously powerful calamities all around the world.

More about this post here.

Philippine Weather, Outer Space and Renaming PAGASA

The Philippines has a long way to go in weather forecasting.  For a long time, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration or popularly known as PAGASA has been waiting for its order of at least ten S-band Doppler Radars.  The first delivery being half of the lot.  This has not happened.

PAGASA has been relying in part on the steady stream of free inputs with its membership in the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA).  Certain quarters suggested the creation of a Philippine space agency in 2007 and a data communications (satellite) based agency as early as 1988.  No one listened to the proposals.  If the former Sec. Emilia Boncodin of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) even singlehandedly torpedoed down the creation of the Congress-legislated National Transport Safety Board, much more a space agency. And because of Boncodin’s single act, the whole situation is so fucked up that tragic disasters and crises involving mishaps at sea have been happening left and right and can’t be stopped from happening in the future. There were those who unnecessarily criticized and lambasted the proponent of a Philippine space agency, a retiring engineer at PAGASA, as foolish.

The project proposed to create a functional data communication agency, the Philippine Satellite Communication Operation, Research and Development Council (PSCRDC) in 1988, at the diminishing level of euphoria over EDSA I was probably just thrown in the garbage can.  If real and pseudo scholars will check at the Records Office in Malacañang, there is heavy doubt if the document was even registered as received by the Office of the President, even under the heading of Classified matter.  The project paper had a stamp of SECRET all over it.

The PSCRDC was clearly envisioned to be a Philippine space agency and it preceded the idea submitted by Engr. Bernardo Soriano.  Soriano appears to be an admin man, although he should be equipped with a doctorate after serving more than 30 years in PAGASA.  Why he submitted the idea for PASA could be due to his years of experiencing faulty detection and forecasting at PAGASA.

The Philippine Government should review the PAGASA proposal now and not at any other later time.  S-band Radars are all right.  But is it state-of-the-art in storm detection radars (SDR)?  If the investment to buy 10 radars will not cover the entire archipelago, what is the use of having the Dopplers?

Will it not pay more to have a stronger space agency and to invest more inputs for a mechanism to generate more data from outer space than is available today for the country?  After all, how many end-users are there for satellite data?  Nearly everyone has a use for information from outer space, not the least of which are those in the field of environment management, business, civil and military aviation, shipping, land transport, logistics, defense, law enforcement and just about any Googler and ArcGIS map user out there that includes many students, teachers, professionals who know how to.  And if you count them all, the number runs to millions.

That in itself is already a huge market.  Considering that the Philippine business traffic overlaps with those of many other countries, there is also revenue potential in this area.

For this reason, Cyberpark Telecom, our company has extended its sights towards business that relies on outer space data and possibly to generate a positive relationship with Smart Communications in this regard.

While there is only one Philippine satellite, see data from SatNews below, there is also great good that will come about if the satellite were boosted and fully equipped with new components and gadgetry to increase its sensing capabilities and other functions.  And that is where we come in.  If the Agila II Satellite people will not accept our offer, we can go shopping for other partners.  There are hundreds of satellites, real and artificial orbiting in outer space. India alone has ten satellites.  Or we could opt to launch our own satellites in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology in the near future.

By then, government must have renamed the PAGASA into a Philippine Space Agency as Soriano dreamed of.  But today we urge the administration of HE  PGMA to start pushing its cluster of agencies to map out the strengthening of RP’s capacities for using outer space as a valuable resource in many of its concerns.

As we are advocating in Resource Recovery Movement, there is a need for policy regime change in the area of mapping as it relates to environment, to global warming, to its many applications in engineering, architectural township planning, urban development, agriculture, etc.

The link to information on the Agila II Satellite: SatNews

Want to be part

2010 Hazard mapping and environmental summit (HMES), Eco Summit 2010 to be held in the Philippines (Manila) (8-15 April 2010)‏

From: Meen Poudyal Chhetri (dr_mbpchhetri@xxxxxx)
Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 7:13:50 AM
To:    saferecover@msn.com; onefestival@live.com

Dear Sir/Madam, 

I am from Nepal. This is regarding my great interest to participate in the 2010 Hazard mapping and environmental summit (HMES), Eco Summit 2010 to be held in the Philippines (Manila) (8-15 April 2010).

As defined by the World Bank, I am from a very low income and least developed country - Nepal,  neither me nor my organization have resources to attend theconference. I would, therefore, like to request you to kindly let me know, if there is any possibility of funding from your organization for my participation. If I will be given a chance to attend the conference that will be an asset and excellent opportunity for me and my organization. I can contribute by presenting a paper in theconference.

I look forward to hear from you soon in positive vein.
 
With very kind regards,

Sincerely yours,

Meen B. Poudyal Chhetri, PhD
General Secretary 
Nepal Center for Disaster Management (NCDM) 
Lalitpur, Nepal

Resolved to be part of conference

Letter of Participation‏

From: lamin saidy (lsdisaster@xxxx)

Sent: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:18:39 PM

To:    saferecover@msn.com

 
 Dear Sir/Madam,
 
I write with great appreciation and happiness to kindly apply for your forhtcoming noble  2010 Hazard mapping and environmental summit (HMES), Eco Summit 2010 to be held in Philippines (Manila) from on the 8-15 April,2009.
 
My name is Mr.Lamin Saidy from The Gambia, West Africa. I am a Regional Disaster Coordinator of National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and lead focal person for the Agency Assessment Data Collection.I am an experienced personnel in field of Disaster risk Reduction Advocacy and also a lead Community DRR trainer.
 
With regards to these facts, i wish kindly participate in this important forum of your towards serving Human kind.I promise if considered to participate to this event i will immensely contribute towards the success of the Summits.And it as well help me in my career as an Officer to implement new ideas that i learn from the Summit for the benefit of my Country.
 
Whiles looking forward to hear from you, i wish you all the best in your efforts and wish you a successful Summit 2010.
 
Yours Faithfully

 Lamin Saidy

Responses to 2010 [Geo] Hazard Mapping and Environment Summit Manila

From UNEP-OCHA:

Dear colleagues,

We at the Joint UNEP/OCHA Environnment Unit have become aware of the Hazard mapping and environmental summit you are organizing in April 2010. As part of efforts to improve the international response to environmental emergencies we have developed a tool to identify secondary environmental risks that industrial facilities and large infrastructure may pose when affected by a natural disaster: the Hazard Identification Tool (please see the attachment for further information). In addition to using this tool in response to emergencies, i.e. to identify environmental hazards after a disaster has struck, we have been exploring different ways to use the tool to identify and map hazards before the on-set of natural disasters, thereby
contributing to preparedness efforts.

It is before this background that we would like to inquire whether any contribution from our side could be of value to the Eco Summit and/or whether there might be other possibilities for collaboration. I would be happy to provide you with more details on our work in regards to environmental hazard identification.

Best regards,
Mirja Peters

(See attached file: HIT – One pager (09 Sep).pdf)

Ms. Mirja PETERS
Environmental Emergencies Unit (joint UNEP/OCHA)
Emergency Preparedness Section, Emergency Services Branch
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Palais des Nations – bureau D-117
CH 1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Phone: +41 22 917 1590
Fax: +41 22 917 0257
E-mail: petersm@un.org

http://ochaonline.un.org/ochaunep

Conserve the environment! Please do not print this email unless absolutely
necessary.

2010 Hazard mapping and environmental summit (HMES)
[ Eco Summit 2010 ]

Type: Meeting or Conference 
Date: 08-15 Apr 2010 
Location: Philippines (Manila) 
Main organizer 
Resource Recovery Movement (RRM) 

Description 

The Resource Recovery Movement will hold the first 2010 Hazards Mapping and Environment Summit  (Eco 2010 Summit) in Manila, Philippines. This is ultimately borne about by the tremendous changing of the Philippine landscape and those of other countries in the Pacific Rim in the last few decades. All efforts towards risk mapping in relation to calamities and disasters in the past should now take into consideration the great shifts and transformations in land mass, the enormous amount of rainfall brought about by climate change and many new factors that were heretofore not factored into national and sub-national planning by governments as well as even by business establishments and non-government organizations.

The 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environmental Summit (HMES) is intended to develop better approaches to mapping risks and dangers to communities in the Philippines and other countries with tropical climates. It takes a cue from the recent experience in China, Indonesia and the Philippines, notwithstanding the previous experiences in Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan where scores of people died due to unforeseen occurrences during the incidence of a natural disaster: earthquake, 
typhoon, tsunami and other calamities. 

The databasing, mapping and full coordination of efforts towards use and sharing of a full function GIS on hazards, volcanoes, water, flood, forests in the Philippines and Asia, vulnerability areas, liquefaction potential, crisis and hot spots is long due because of the long-running phenomenon of climate change in the planet. This is also significant in that the Philippines, among other countries, lies in the Pacific Rim of Fire where a large number of earthquake faults lie. 

The most important value of the conference is to determine the plan and the cost of implementing such a plan to make the Philippines and other participating nations safer from increasingly hazardous calamities. 

Additional information 

http://ecologyguardian.wordpress.com/ 

How to register 
Please contact Sol: +632 7102609 +639212384228 
email: saferecover@msn.com 
onefestival@live.com 

 

Support the Eco 2010 Summit in Manila

ANNUAL ECOLOGY CRISIS CONFERENCE

The Resource Recovery Movement will hold the first 2010 Hazards Mapping and Environment Summit (Eco 2010 Summit) in Manila, Philippines.

This is ultimately borne about by the tremendous changing of the Philippine landscape and those of other countries in the Pacific Rim in the last few decades.

All efforts towards risk mapping in relation to calamities and disasters in the past should now take into consideration the great shifts and transformations in land mass, the enormous amount of rainfall brought about by Climate Change and many new factors that were heretofore not factored into national and sub-national planning by governments as well as even by business establishments and non-government organizations.

Click this link to sign up: Join Resource Recovery Movement!

The 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environmental Summit (HMES) is intended to develop better approaches to mapping risks and dangers to communities in the Philippines and other countries with tropical climates.

It takes a cue from the recent experience in China, Indonesia and the Philippines, notwithstanding the previous experiences in Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan where scores of people died due to unforeseen occurrences during the incidence of a natural disaster: earthquake, typhoon, tsunami and other calamities.

The databasing, mapping and full coordination of efforts towards use and sharing of a full function GIS on hazards, volcanoes, water, flood, forests in the Philippines and Asia, vulnerability areas, liquefaction potential, crisis and hot spots is long due because of the long-running phenomenon of Climate Change in the planet. This is also significant in that the Philippines, among other countries, lies in the Pacific Rim of Fire where a large number of earthquake faults lie.

The most important value of the conference is to determine the plan and the cost of implementing such a plan to make the Philippines and other participating nations safer from increasingly hazardous calamities.

Note: The organizers reserve the right to make minor changes in the Conference details prior to the actual Event.

HMES 2010 Organizers

Lessons from Typhoon Ondoy: The importance of going local

One of my classmates Hency Barbaza Marquez, now a really fine doctor in the US (this is inevitably an ad), invited me to this social net. It was a good thing. Over that site, I invited those who would get interested in joining a resource recovery movement that was inspired by the Finnish Government’s functional unit in the 1970s called FinKonsult. I think that it’s defunct now. The main reason probably why the concept of resource recovery was propagated by Finland and by many other European nations, is that specifically Finland, is a heavy user of pulp. And chemicals.

A Finnish friend over a few glasses of alak impressed me with his job in the main industry of his country: paper. No, no, no not just plain paper. Paper for banks. Security paper, that is, that is used for bank notes, certificates of stock, whatever. Basta that kind of paper.

It was a main export of Finland, he said, paper. The only other country that heavily exported the same commodity and stiffly competed with Finland, was Sweden.  So they (meaning him, my friend and the Swedish) must be falling a lot of trees, I asked him. A lot! he said.

Many of us use a lot of paper and wood products and like my friend’s country, we also cut a lot of trees.  But many of those that do the cutting, don’t necessarily consider just how much paper and wood we need. They just cut and cut and sell and sell, never mind if they violate or environmental laws.

And so the need for resource recovery.  The concept is just simple, anyway.  Create savings in our resources, meaning use the limited resources of our environment wisely, albeit not sparingly, but wisely.  Save the lot that can be saved. And avoid usage that could be harmful to others or to the environment itself.

When you save, you have something for the rainy day right? That’s added income, added profit.

When you care, you are more careful, correct? Then less harm, less hazard to the surroundings.

When you do something wisely, you do it efficiently and effectively, correct class?  That’s increased productivity.  Now increased productivity, translates to more income, more profit for less effort and lower levels of waste.

Now about our title, going local, it comes from the blog post of girbaudz that specifically asks for the government to do the following:

1.   Stop talking about and blaming global warming
2.   Create a specific super body to study and manage a Calamity Monitoring and Public Warning System that will be either an adjunct of, or co-equal with the NDCC
3.  Increase the capability of NDCC to provide early response during disaster
4.   Create local structures and response capability to confront calamities. (In China, communities near rivers set up a system of ropes and handles from bank to bank to prevent people from drowning and dying during heavy flooding and provide access from one side of the river to the other.)
5.   Restore the Flood Control Project fund and create funding for additional flood control systems not only in Metro Manila but also in many other vulnerable areas
6.   Resettle many of Metro Manila’s squatters living in major or minor bridges, and completely relocate all of the human rat peoples inside Sewers everywhere in Metro Manila and open up the entire sewerage system to let surface run-off water seep into the sewers (and desilt, dredge those damned rivers, for God’s sake!) — insertion mine
7.    Stop the forest denudation by recreating a fully armed, heavily weaponized Forest Ranger Brigade from a composite of AFP, Coast Guard, PNP and other armed services. No DENR employee shall be allowed to enter any Forest Ranger facility except to cooperate with them
8.   Conduct behind-schedule damage control from the following — Baguio killer earthquake and Mt. Pinatubo eruption damage by reconstructing the landscape destroyed by eroded ash from Caraballo and other ranges and greening of these ranges (among other activities) to prevent further flash flooding, erosion, avalanches and landslides (insertion mine)
9.   Heavily sanction all the illegal logging and indiscriminate dumping of toxins from mining operations from north to south and stop the syndicates that are willing and fully determined to kill their enemies and detractors by putting them in jail for life
10. Stop the killing of Manila Bay by providing solutions to the erosion, toxic dumping from point Agno down to Pasig River.

I guess girbaudz is right.  It really is more expensive to undertake damage control than to make proactive moves.  And here is the clincher, calling on Sec. Jose L. Atienza of the DENR:

11.  Legislate new rules and regulations, acts and statutes for protecting the ecology including maximized penalties for all violators (illegal loggers, miners, dumpers of toxic waster in internal or territorial waters) and then Codify all ecology laws into the Environmental Code of the Philippines that provides the vision of a cleaner environment fifty to one hundred years hence. (all mine)

12.  Educate the youth on the importance of the ecology.  DECs and CHED will issue circulars to create more subjects and more inclusions of the topic of the environment into school curricula. (all mine)

Government needs to arrest the destruction of our ecosystem.  That’s right Sec. Atienza, government. The NGOs can’t do anything unless they really put their minds to not just making a living, making a little money out of the damned ecology racket, creating positions and jobs for this or that person and giving huge salaries and perks.  Just for doing nothing.

But more so, the government should actually be more focused on creating a mechanism by which managing disaster assistance could be more “localized” – which is what is now being done in Pasig where the NDCC set up a local Command Center.  This might be a derivative of the girbaudz “localizing disaster assistance management” doctrine, but it will do just the same.  In the end, it will turn out to be a highly successful decision.

Synchronicity?  Or a positive and favorable acceptance of girbaudz’s suggestion?

The administration deserves credit for initiating such a solution similar to the one offered by blogger girbaudz about going local.

The recent experience in Sulu Province, for example, giving all out support to the local players in solving the ICRC crisis proved that going local, with national officials merely providing a modicum of support, made the rescue and recovery efforts of Lacaba, Notter and Vagni, very successful.

There is hope that even with bigger calamities, many more lives will be spared, many more properties saved.

However, this will still hinge upon having very good typhoon forecasting equipment.  Good typhoon, earthquake or fire detection mechanisms will already have solved half of the problem of responders in a disaster situation. In the first place, the effort needed for rescue, recovery and relief will only be at least a half of what is required as in the case of Typhoon Ondoy.

The president and the secretary of national defense, are going to be most well-advised listening to the suggestion in girbaudz’s blog.

As pointed out in that blog, in places like China, there are devices employed in places like river banks such as a network of ropes tied from bank to bank to allow people to have a handhold in case the rivers are heavily inundated with flood waters.

This is only one example.  There are other creative measures that could be formulated, each unique to the specific setting.  I wish the government good luck in laying out a blueprint for disaster response that will make events typical of Hurricane Katrina more manageable and less damaging.

As a postscript, I reiterate my invitation to everyone to join Facebook Cause Resource Recovery Movement.  It is in the stage of organization but will soon grow to become a functional network that could possibly make modest contributions to saving our environment from wholescale destruction that causes catastrophies like Typhoon Ondoy. Ondoy as we know now from the media reports, left behind more than 100 dead, hundreds of thousands of people victims, nearly a billion in crop and other losses.  Such a huge waste.  A simple natural calamity shouldn’t be allowed to go on a rampage just like that with many in the government feeling helpless about what to do next.