EDITORIAL
Grip lost: When the waters took everything
Christine Aton remembers the sound before the water came. It wasn’t thunder—it was the refrigerator scraping against the floor, then floating. She and her family were trapped in their home in Liloan, Cebu, as Typhoon Tino unleashed 183 millimeters of rain in a single day. “We tried to pry open her bedroom door with a crowbar,” she said. “Then the refrigerator started to float.”
In Talisay, Regie Mallorca clung to a rope as the floodwaters surged. He and his wife were swept away. “I lost my grip,” he said, his voice hollow with grief. Across the Visayas and Mindanao, nearly 400,000 people were displaced. The death toll reached 188, with 135 still missing. These are not just statistics—they are ruptures in the lives of families who now face the slow, painful task of rebuilding.
But the storm did not act alone. It was aided by years of unchecked hillside development, blocked tributaries, and a flood control program that spent ₱26 billion since 2016 with little to show for it. In Cebu’s upland barangays, the mountains have been carved into terraces of ambition—gated communities and commercial hubs that promise harmony with nature but often deliver runoff, erosion, and ecological imbalance.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), tasked with regulating these developments, has been reactive at best. Technical investigations into drainage systems and slope protection began only after the floodwaters receded. The agency’s mandate includes geohazard mapping, watershed protection, and Environmental Compliance Certificate (ECC) enforcement—yet many projects proceeded without rigorous runoff simulations or slope stability audits.
Had the DENR enforced stricter environmental compliance, audited ECCs annually, and suspended developments pending slope integrity reports, the scale of destruction might have been mitigated. Instead, we are left with volcanic mudflows in Negros, submerged homes in Cebu, and a haunting question: What did we know, and when did we choose not to act?
Typhoon Tino was a climate event. But its aftermath is a governance crisis. The floods exposed not only our vulnerability to extreme weather but also the fragility of our institutions. When hillside developments block natural waterways and strip vegetation, they endanger downstream communities. The cost is measured not just in pesos, but in lives.
We must demand more than relief operations. We must demand accountability. Transparent publication of ECC audits, a moratorium on upland developments pending climate review, and DENR-led consultations before land conversion approvals are not radical ideas—they are the bare minimum of responsible governance. Climate data must inform zoning laws, not be ignored by them.
Regie Mallorca’s grip was lost to the floodwaters. But ours must not be. We must hold fast—to truth, to transparency, to the lives that were swept away. Typhoon Tino did not just take homes. It took trust. And if we do not act, it will take our future too.