I won’t be repeating a thing that scholar Gill H. Boehringer has fluently expounded in an article published in Bulatlat.com. But what I’ll do is to jot down some mental notes that I have — whether leaning or otherwise – to the opinion of the author though I have to say at the onset that indeed, climate change is an issue worth tackling by any activist, revolutionary or development professional that is hoping for a better world than what we have right now.
In reporting the devastating human effects wrought by “Ondoy”, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a major media player, clearly displayed its primary ideological role.[2] By seeking to convince its readers that the effects of the storm were “felt equally by rich and poor” and that it was a “great equalizer”[3], the newspaper was attempting to bolster the view that the Filipino class system had nothing to do with the disaster, and that the lives of all Filipinos are shaped by the same forces of nature, even by fate or by God.[4] When it comes to such things as “natural disasters” we all suffer, rich and poor.So blame the weather, not the system.
Such open ideological work in support of the ruling- class- in- general is not always the way of the Inquirer. Thus for many years it has been staunchly attacking one section of the ruling class, the Arroyo bloc which is governing the country. In that vein it has seemed almost radical in pursuing greed, corruption and kick-backs; junketing extravagance; electoral manipulation and cheating; abuse of human rights such as extra-judicial killings and disappearances, torture, intimidation and harassment by state agents; abuse of executive privilege; subverting institutions of the state such as the Ombudsman and the Supreme Court by appointment of “loyalists”; and countless other failings of the GMA regime.
But the reporting of “Ondoy” revealed the Inquirer in its more fundamental mode, as a spokesperson of the ruling-class-in-general, purveying ideologically driven slanted news which provides guidance to its readers, and others it influences indirectly through them. Thus the meaning of the storm, and the terrible effects, was constructed in a particular way. The tragedy was “framed” so that it can be understood in a way that tends to reinforce the class structure.[5] Such framing has an ideological function: to maintain the hegemony of the ruling class-in-general. To do this it must achieve the following: 1) to deflect responsibility for the disaster away from the ruling-class-in-general and the exploitative system from which they benefit (to the detriment of the mass of people); and 2) to use the event as an opportunity to portray that hierarchal and unjust system as a “natural” part of a sometimes cruel world where all must expect to suffer, rich or poor alike, just as we are sometimes told in tough economic times that “we are all in it together” or “everyone has to tighten their belt”.
Though I fully agree that Inquirer failed to put its everyday lens when it covered the past storms, it was a fault that msst mainstream media was guilty of at those times. And not just the media, but the entire social institutions that we have — including schools, church, and cause-oriented organizations. We all failed to put a solid chorus that GMA must step down — if we can not at least expel the entire ruling system– for its inability to make better cities and responsive systems able to save the poorest of the poor in their daily lives so that they can gracefully survive any disaster.
The author continues (and I say, amen)
A critical inquiry into the “Ondoy/Pepeng” tragedy would note the following. The major causes of death and destruction are private capital’s insatiable greed leading to the rape of the natural environment with the complicity of the state. Thus in a country where a few are shockingly wealthy, and governments are used to siphon off fortunes from public monies, there has been a lack of resources expended on flood prevention and proper water diversion and control against flooding. But such governmental inaction and negligence is linked to the inappropriate private use of natural resources, for example mining, logging ( both legal and illegal) have contributed significantly to killer mudslides and flooding.[12] So too have other forms of destruction of the natural environment such as excessive and irresponsible road-building, construction of malls and other structures including “dams for profit”[13] which interfere with natural water courses; and numerous other forms of inappropriate real estate and housing “development”,[14] all for the private accumulation of wealth.
Other causes we would discover are attributable to the ideology t of neo-liberalism which supports developing the private sector at the expense of government, resulting in a state which fails to regulate and control the kinds, place and degree of development. Such is the underlying explanation for continued inadequate emergency planning, policies and procurement in the face of the past record of storms in the Philippines. For example the lack of equipment such as rubber boats. The Inquirer also carried a story that indicated there was inadequate meterological equipment for forecasting and warning.[15]
While it is true that there will always be risk of some loss of life and destruction of property from mega-storms ( it appears that “Ondoy”
brought about double the rain attributed to Katrina at New Orleans[16]) that risk could be greatly minimized as has been done in some other countries which are far poorer than the Philippines and also located in the path of such storms, for example, Cuba. But to do so, and especially to protect the poor- the rich are able to protect themselves- would require the rich to forego some of the fruits of nearly unrestrained exploitation of people and the environment which puts the poor at great risk.
What I was waiting to hear from Boehringer to dismiss the supraclass reporting is the common understanding among scientists and the international humanitarian world post-Hurricane Katrina that there is no such a thing as “natural disasters” . There are natural events but who dies and how are defined by the kind of social and political infrastructures that we have — and hence, when the system is not working for the poor — then what becomes natural are the hazards that was built by the ruling class.
Mayang Magiliw 