[Be The Good] The limits of ‘master planning’

Two disasters related to structures built by human hands resurfaced in the past weeks, keeping our community busy and igniting anger and disappointment.

Incessant rain from the enhanced southwest monsoon overwhelmed some of the flood control projects in Metro Manila and nearby cities, prompting President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. himself to ask out loud if these should be reexamined.

Days before, commuters and persons with disabilities groups snarled at the dangerously steep wheelchair ramp built by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) at the EDSA PhilAm busway station in Quezon City.

We have long relied on hard infrastructure to address many of the woes that plague our communities. For politicians, infrastructure projects are loud, attention-grabbing ways to show they are helping their constituents. Definitely, infrastructure plays a part in solutions, but it cannot stand alone. It works only when it is in harmony with non-infrastructure solutions.

In the case of how flood control infrastructure was tested by the southwest monsoon or habagat, which was enhanced by Typhoon Carina (Gaemi), hydraulics expert and University of the Philippines professor emeritus Guillermo Tabios III critiqued how the government is used to master planning everything. 

“We have been looking at always depending on master planning, which [is] done every 10 years, or every 20 years, and yet investments come in after 10 or 20 or 30 years,” he said in our interview in Rappler community show Be The Good.

He argued that the ever-changing nature of our cities and communities calls for adaptive planning, which means making adjustments with each new change in the city (say a new parking lot). It’s not one plan, but many, and constantly evolving with the community.

“Look at scenarios, look at all kinds of scenarios every day. It’s like playing a game of chess and looking at different [scenarios], before you have the chess championship. So that’s how we should do resilient planning — it’s continuous planning and adaptive planning,” he said.

Pamela Cajilig, a design anthropologist who was also part of the episode, talked about an integrated approach to mitigating disasters. Government agencies have to see disaster resilience potential when planning housing, conservation, irrigation, drainage, building standards, land use, zoning, and more.

“I think one of the problems, in general, in disaster management, not just in the Philippines but across the world, is very siloed thinking [when] so many things that we do are interrelated. Like, for example, for flood control measures…it has an impact on housing. But who is looking at the intersection between infrastructure and housing and livelihood?” said Cajilig.

Then we have the MMDA which violated the country’s Accessibility Law with its overly steep wheelchair ramp in an EDSA busway station. 

For the leaders of Life Haven Center for Independent Living, the debacle is only one manifestation of the “puwede na” attitude pervasive among government agencies when it comes to genuine accessibility in public buildings and facilities. A Rappler report also showed how 80% of train stations in the capital region are not fully accessible for persons with disabilities.

To fight this lackadaisical attitude to ensuring genuine accessibility, Life Haven and its partners launched the #DapatPWEDE campaign, calling on citizens to post photos of structures that violate the Accessibility Law and using the hashtag #DapatPWEDE.

Public infrastructure that enables everyone’s right to freedom of movement is in line with Rappler’s #MakeManilaLiveable push. We and our partners support this campaign and you can expect collaborations in this direction.

And so I echo a mantra often used by persons with disabilities, but applicable to anyone whose needs are ignored or set aside: “Nothing about us, without us.”

Anything we build that affects communities must be built, not just with concrete and metal, but with the most human elements of all: compassion and empathy. 

Community updates

A team of Rappler and DW Akademie trainers were in Cagayan de Oro City from Monday, July 29, to Wednesday, July 31, and gave an advanced workshop to 15 youths from several parts of Mindanao on how to spread media and information literacy in their communities. We’ve also partnered with other members of the #FactsFirstPH coalition to localize the training and make it relevant to Mindanao communities. This Movers For Facts program is supported by DW Akademie and the German Federal Foreign Office. We look forward to this cross-cultural exchange of learnings about how to combat disinformation and support truth tellers. On Sunday, August 4, the team flies to Naga City!

ICYMI

Let your curiosity feed your hunger with Rappler’s new chat series “Ask And You Shall Eat” – live chats with Filipino food entrepreneurs in which any Rappler Communities app user can ask the guest anything and get a chance to win the guest’s best-selling dishes. We had our first live chat on Tuesday, July 30, with Lola Nena’s COO Steffi Santana. For asking great questions, Rappler Communities members @mai_mai, @Micha S., and @ianchris were the winners of the famous triple cheese donuts and toasted siopao. Getting hungry? Join the next live chat in August in the food and travel chat room of our app. – Rappler.com

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