DAVAO CITY, Philippines – “Don’t blame poor Filipinos for what’s
wrong with the weather,” Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said as he lashed at
critics who blamed illegal logging for the worst flooding that
inundated some areas in Davao in water for the whole week.
“Every time there’s something wrong with the weather, you start
to crucify the Filipinos, when we don’t have a significant contribution
to what ails the weather. We contribute the least to global warming,
blame the Western world, blame the US and China,” Duterte said, reacting
to the crawler on a cable news network (ANC), which quoted environment
groups as saying the “denudation of Mt. Apo contributed much to the
recent flooding in Davao City.
Duterte, in his Sunday television program, said the volcanic peak
of Mt. Apo had no trees in the first place. Mt. Apo had nothing to do
with the recent flooding, he said.
Duterte said 89 million cubic meters of rainfall, an equivalent
to a one-year production of drinking water of the Davao City Water
District in the city, poured in the city in two days, causing the
floods.
“We never contributed significantly as to alter the temperature of the planet, it was the Western World,” Duterte said.
“The rivers and tributaries overflowed,” Duterte said, adding that the flood came from the Lipadas and Davao watershed.
He said even if it was illegal logging, it was not the Filipinos
who denuded large forest areas in Mindanao, citing South Cotabato, which
was a virgin forest before American companies started logging
operations that cleared away entire forests.
“Who were the first loggers in Mindanao? Those were Americans,”
Duterte said. “Where are our trees? Of course, there were Filipinos, but
at that time, it was considered legitimate.”
Duterte asked critics to look at the bigger picture, instead of
automatically castigating poor Filipinos for what’s ailing the
environment.
“The bigger picture is it was not us who destroyed the
environment, we have the least of the contribution to climate change,”
he said. “What caused the severe wind, velocity 200 kilometers per hour?
It’s the climate. What’s the effect? Everything. Everyone had his share
(of disasters) including New York,” he said.
“Do not believe these foreigners coming from the US and Europe to lecture on us about issues,” Duterte said.
But he defended those who developed housing subdivisions even in
areas considered now as flood-prone and a catch basin for water. He said
that the developers have been granted permit by the Housing Land Use
and Regulatory Board (HLURB) in the first place, hence, did not have any
choice but to develop the properties.
“Jade Valley (subdivision) was built what used to be a riverbed,
so when the river overflowed, expect the water to get inside your
house,” Duterte said.
Residents in flood-prone housing subdivisions, such as the Jade
Valley Subdivision, had asked the vice mayor to intervene, hoping to put
a stop to the payment of their housing mortgages within the
subdivision, which developers carved out of the dried up riverbed and
proved to be prone to flooding.
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