OPINION | 𝗣𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀’ 𝗴𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝗺𝗯

Earth has been bustling more lately. News of environmental disasters is continuing to bombard the world on a daily basis. Some volcanoes are as disturbing as ever, raining down huge rocks, ash, and particulate matter on villages. Rivers and lakes are getting dehydrated. Earthquakes occur left and right. Just recently, Maui was wiped out by wildfires, reducing the Hawaiian island to dark ashes and death marks.

Correspondingly, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck on February 6 of this year left southern Turkey in the midst of a protracted recovery process. Just months after, on Monday, September 11, Morocco was hit by a magnitude 6.8 earthquake, leaving the sites with crumpled houses and unfathomable casualties; around 2,900 people were killed and 5,530 were injured.

𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗕𝗼𝗺𝗯

One country that is susceptible to being hit by a catastrophic earthquake is the Philippines. The island nation is at high risk due to its geographical location in the Pacific Ring of Fire, the world’s most seismically active region. This region boasts seventy-five percent of the world’s active volcanoes and the Philippines’ Pinatubo, Mayon, and Taal belong to this roster.

In the past, the Philippines had experienced the might of several deadly earthquakes. The most significant ones include the 1990 Luzon Earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7, leaving 2,412 people dead, and the 2013 Bohol Earthquake with a magnitude of 7.2, leaving at least 200 casualties.

There is one specific region in the archipelago that experts and scientists fear will create a multitude of catastrophic events: Metro Manila. The urban region is situated above the West Valley Fault, a fault line capable of inducing earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or above. Being one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas with a population of at least 14 million, the potential consequences of a looming disaster, dubbed as “The Big One”, are going to be inevitably large.

𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

Metro Manila is the Philippines’ central district, the country’s provider of most of its necessities, and it simply cannot afford to lose it to an earthquake. If it plunges into a state of devastation and chaos, it will not be long before the rest of the country follows.

It does not help that the potential energy of the West Valley Fault increases each year that it remains dormant. It becomes more and more imminent that one massive release is forthcoming and it does not look good.

As a form of mitigating this impending disaster, President Marcos signed Executive Order 24 on April 30 to set up the Disaster Response and Crisis Management Task Force (DRCMTF) defined as a “clear unity of command to lead the government’s efforts in confronting challenges brought about by natural disasters through evidence-driven and science-based approach in crisis management.”

"The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) stated that a task force was created and would lead the preparedness and response and [would] be responsible for convening the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) to recommend the declaration and the lifting of a state of calamity, as well as the disbursement of the council’s fund,” says Cervantes in an article written in Philippine News Agency.

However, we certainly hope that the mandates and stipulations of this order do not remain written as good as it gets but are executed properly. It is also imperative that while the government enforces rules and instructions to keep people safe during disasters, we shall also act for our own well-being. Together, the government and the common people must strive to make sure that all preparations needed in combatting the projected impact of this disaster are looked after.

We are all definitely sitting on a time bomb and if these recent earthquakes have not served as a wake-up call for us Filipinos, we will be hit hard and there will be a point of no return. ★

ᴛʜᴇsᴇ ᴛʜɪɴɢs ᴡᴇ ɴᴏᴛᴇ by Ivory Jade Q. Guizon

Cartoon by Juan Viktor Fidelino

Pubmat by Kent Joshua Nagutom