Colleagues on this email list might be interested
in reading the statement below from the Labor Party
of the Philippines about the devastation caused by
Typhoon Haiyan. They have set up a fund appealing
for solidarity for victims.
Martin Empson
Treasurer, Campaign Against Climate Change
Treasurer, Campaign Against Climate Change
Trade Union group
www.climate-change-jobs.org
www.climate-change-jobs.org
===
CAPITALISM IS destroying the planet.
Now we suffer. The
devastating horror unleashed by the
monster-typhoon Yolanda
(Haiyan) upon the eastern and central
Philippines regions is
unspeakable. As of this writing,
estimates of the number of
casualties and actual damages are
tentative because many areas
remain isolated, and communications, power,
road and port
systems are down.
An initial estimate by the provincial
government of Leyte and the
regional police put the death toll at more
than 10,000. Some 70
to 80 percent of houses and structures along
the typhoon's path
were destroyed. In Tacloban City alone,
officials told the media
that the death toll "could go
up" to 10,000, as people died en masse
from surging tidal waves.
We have yet to account for some of our
party members, including
the leader of the city's federation of
tricycle drivers and operators.
Another member, a newly elected village
official in Southern Leyte,
is still not in contact. We just hope
that they have survived the wrath
of Haiyan. There is also little
information about Eastern Samar towns
where Haiyan made first landfall from
the Pacific.
The massive loss of life and
destruction are indeed beyond words
to describe. The death toll will surely
climb when actual rescue and
retrieval operations reach the isolated areas.
National and inter-
national aid is coming in, but there
will definitely be a catastrophic
scarcity of most essentials, such as food,
water, power, housing
and medicines. The national and local
governments were caught
unprepared to deal with the colossal
impact of Haiyan. And we still
have four or five more typhoons coming this
year, according to
official weather forecasts.
The poor--the army of low-income,
unemployed and underemployed
people--suffer the most in every
disaster. It is because they lack the
means to protect themselves during
calamities, and the ability to survive
and recover thereafter.
Most of the poor, both in rural and
urban areas, live in hazard zones
(slums, riverbanks, creeks, coastlines,
mountain slopes) that are prone to
both natural and man-made disasters.
Their houses are made of light
materials, just enough to cover them
from sunshine and rain, but not from
surging floods, landslides or tidal
waves.
Moreover, the country's biggest
employer, the agriculture sector, is first
to suffer from the impact of both La
Niña (floods) and El Niño (long drought)
which are now common phenomena due to
climate change, and further
endanger the country's food security
and employment opportunities.
Regrettably, the poor don't even know
why nature is so unkind to people,
most especially to them. They have not been
informed that today's wrath
is more man-made than a natural phenomenon.
They have yet to under-
stand that it was capitalism that
exploited and destroyed this planet beyond
its limits, creating in effect a destructive
fusion of economic, social and
climate crisis.
The Philippines has the highest stake
and the strongest case to bring
before the ongoing United Nation's
Climate talks in Warsaw, Poland.
Previous climate talks produced
nothing, as the process is dominated by
developed countries that are known for
committing something, yet doing
nothing.
The timing is indeed "tragically
ironic," one writer has pointed out. The
19th Conference of Parties (COP19) in
Poland opened right after the
Philippines was hit by the Earth's
strongest typhoon in recent history,
leaving thousands of dead out of more
than 4 million people who suffered
from what scientists consider a monster storm.
We welcome all international aid and
solidarity work coming from
Northern countries. This is the least
they could do--put their one cent to
climate emergencies such as in the
Philippines. But we demand more.
We want climate justice. Capitalist
countries must be held accountable for
the climate crisis. They must be forced to pay
the climate debt they owe to
poor nations.
Capitalist countries, we emphasize, are
responsible for the climate crisis.
They emit more carbon into the
atmosphere--many times over what the
poor countries do. The greenhouse gases
emitted from capitalist industries
drive global temperatures to new
levels. This causes climactic reactions like
warmer oceans and rising sea levels, and
eventually leads to the formation
of monster typhoons as in the case of
Haiyan.
For over a century, capitalists have
profited from nature by monetizing it
rather than protecting its rich natural
resources. And the poor people and
poor nations suffer the most from the
climate crisis created by rich nations.
The Philippines is among the topmost
vulnerable countries. In fact, we have
suffered enough from devastating
typhoons such as Frank (Fengshen, 2008),
Ondoy (Ketsana, 2009), Sendong (Washi,
2011), Pablo (Bopha, 2012), and
now Yolanda (Haiyan, 2013). The worst may be
yet to come.
What makes the crisis more devastating
is that Haiyan struck the Philippines
when Filipinos are still reeling from a
recent earthquake that killed hundreds
of people. The monster storm also came
when Filipinos are fighting
massive corruption scandals involving a huge
amount of public service
funds.
Corruption in the Philippines reduces
the ability of both the national and
local governments to respond to climate
emergencies of this magnitude
because billions of public funds are
lost to official scams.
More than that, the ruling class's
embrace of free-market ideology since the
1980s has made poor people more
vulnerable. The rich therefore are equally responsible and must be held accountable
for the peoples' miserable
condition.
Neoliberalism made government rely
completely on the private sector to
create employment. Public services such
as water and power were privatized.
Prices of goods and services were
deregulated. This resulted in massive unemployment and underemployment (close
to 30 percent). Social
infrastructure and services are in a
poor state. The poverty rate remains
at 28 percent while hunger affects 19 percent
of the population.
Just imagine this number of poor people
living in one of the country's
poorest regions facing the wrath of
super-typhoons. The post-Haiyan
images will speak more of their
miserable situation. They really are in
dire need of immediate aid and
rehabilitation. Many have already resorted
to confiscations of available supplies
in several stores and malls. We consider
those as justified actions and much
better if collectively organized to isolate
criminal elements and individual push
for survival. Where the government
fails, the people should collectively
rise up.
We therefore warn the government to avoid using force against our
helpless people. The people need food, water and homes to stay in, not a
police force to quell their spirit to survive. In the first place, a
government
that fails to eradicate high-level corruption has no justifiable reason
to use
force in suppressing the peoples'
desperate struggle for life.
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