🇵🇭 Deadly Typhoon Ulysses devastates

Hello friends!

Thursdays are typically premium newsletter day, but I didn’t want to wait any longer on this look at the recent devastation in the Philippines and the political fall-out of it both at the provincial and (of course!) the national level.

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See you then,Erin Cook

The Philippines cannot catch a break this typhoon season. Typhoon Ulysses — known internationally by the less impressive Vamco — has smashed the country before moving on to Vietnam. The Inquirer puts the latest death toll at 73 people with a further 19 still missing. A staggering 3 million have been affected by the disaster, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. 

Ulysses made landfall in Vietnam earlier this week prompting the evacuation of 650,000 people. Agencies report no fatalities but a handful of injuries. 

The aftermath has been a disaster. Flooding and mudslides have destroyed communities in the northern provinces of Luzon as well as closer to the capital. Associated Press has a devastating series of photos showing the extent of the thick sludgy mudslides in Rizal Province. Over 25,000 families in the province had been evacuated before landfall. 

Massive flooding in Cagayan and Isabela in the northeast of Luzon will be subject to a House hearing after allegations local officials released a dam, creating the disaster. Residents were reportedly caught off-guard by the fury of the storm. Typhoons are, as we know, frighteningly common to the country. But the force of Typhoon Ulysses was something else entirely prompting a rethink on disaster management. 

“We should have a medium and long term plan, gusto nating hindi maulit ito [we don’t want this to happen again]. We always anticipate this every year, but it’s not as worse as what we had,” Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba told CNN Philippines. “I hope this will wake us all up, including everyone who abuses our environment.”

Before we launch into the Duterte tirade, here is an excellent piece of history from 2016 written by Manuel L. Quezon III (and passed along by Steven Rood, of course!).  It explains why in the Philippines the president and vice president are not elected on the same ticket and can lead, like for this administration, to having a president and vice president from opposing sides. It’s a bit of an anomaly and the downside to it has been exacerbated quite a bit by the current combative president. 

President Rodrigo Duterte has not really ever been a fan of Vice President Leni Robredo. I’ve argued — as have many people — that Duterte’s misogynistic streak has made him particularly hateful of Robredo throughout the term. With pressure on this year amid the pandemic and now a tragic typhoon season that hate has become much more explicit. 

Duterte’s absence in the recent weeks of disasters has been noted, as we discussed earlier in the month in the wake of Typhoon Rolly. It prompted the hashtag #NasaanAngPangulo (or, Where is the president?) which Duterte accused Robredo of having created in a stunning televised address. Coconuts Manila quotes the President: 

Robredo’s response, reports Coconuts, was to go high. She tweeted a video of supplies being collected and packaged for emergency response, along with the comment: “When a President is a misogynist, the conversation goes down to this level. This is what we do every night, every day, so [that] we could help those in need.”

The Inquirer Newspaper clarified what Robredo has been, exactly, saying. She has been using her enormous social media reach to share information on the latest but has not questioned where Duterte was at any given point, the paper reports. 

The Philippine Star has an interesting bit: the hashtag in question dates back to the Benigno Aquino III presidency. Certainly not Robredo’s invention then!

While this all continues to spill over and the crucial rescue and rebuilding efforts are underway, I’d like to highlight this tweet from Regine Cabato. Duterte’s efforts to smash the media have been frighteningly successful and it’s created an issue for accurately covering him: 

Further reading:

• Challenging the narrative of Filipino resiliency (Rappler)