One of the fatal flaws that we have as Filipinos is our lack of preparation, much more preventive preparation. The tragedy that befell CDO, Iligan, and Zamboanga was something that could have been mitigated had their respective local governments saw fit to prepare its citizens for the eventuality of floods. One local newspaper headline had the Mayor of CDO saying that nobody warned them of the typhoon and thus they were not prepared to handle it. I thought it was a lame excuse for the city's top executive. Typhoon Ondoy is still fresh in everyone's memory and every city and municipality should have already put in place a plan communicated to its citizens on what to do, and what to watch out for in case there is a typhoon. Without this critical guidance from the local officials, the citizenry were practically sitting ducks when the typhoon waters rose bringing along with it illegally cut logs that rammed into their homes wrecking havoc to property and claiming lots of lives.
It's tragic that something like this could happen when we should have learned those lessons from Ondoy. I just hope that Sendong will prove to be a better teacher for other places who just take for granted that they barely get any typhoon only to be caught with their pants down when tragedy strikes.
Let us help and pray for the people of those places that Typhoon Sendong laid to waste. But more importantly, let us not forget the painful lessons that lack of preparation brings to a city or municipality.
