Building back better... (2)

General Santos City—This is the 16th day since we experienced the massive earth-shaking experience of our lives here, and the after effects, not to mention the aftershocks, continue to haunt us to this day.

But going back to anticipatory thinking. Through the years of our stay here, I have not noticed that the city government has promoted this perspective in dealing with possible future calamities.

On Nov. 17, 2023, we were quite shocked to experience the first major earthquake, with a magnitude of 6.8. It killed 11 people, and injured 730 others. But there were reports that some people were missing and not part of the official statistics recorded by authorities.

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Then June 8 happened. It was massive, with a magnitude of 7.8. Now on its 16th day, people are still waiting for news about relatives and friends who are considered “missing.”

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Buildings in the city that sustained huge cracks in their walls in the 2023 earthquake just crumbled, like piles of jagged concrete.

In fairness to the city government, it has a functioning Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office. It may have conducted efficient post-disaster recovery and relief operations. But according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, (PhilVolcs), about 38 percent of the city sits on shaky grounds, that is, prone to being shaken violently when the tectonic plates underneath them move. Moreover, some parts of the city used to be part of a mangrove area, like that part where a major shopping mall is located. The mall already suffered substantial damage in the 2023 earthquake, and it just recently opened its third floor to its customers after retrofitting the damaged parts during that quake.

In the June 8, 2026 earthquake, both the second and third floors of the mall have crumbled, with substantial parts of its elevator and escalator systems practically unusable.

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Anticipatory thinking is built on the premise that disasters, especially those brought about by violent movements of tectonic plates underneath us, cannot be prevented. We need to remind ourselves of this reality, that anytime, a violent shakeup can possibly wipe out all the concrete structures built on soil that is prone to easy liquefaction because it is either sandy or soft, considering its swampy texture.

This knowledge is supposed to guide the rules governing the city’s building code. Getting a building permit is not enough. There should be regulatory inspections before a huge structure is built, starting with how the foundation of a public building, like a shopping mall, is constructed. That inspection and other regulatory inspections should be based on the knowledge of the kind of soil we have in the city.

As I have noted last week, the Japanese government has adopted anticipatory thinking, or its flip side, the building back better perspective. It is the mindset of looking at futures that will be changed abruptly or massively as a consequence of a major underwater shake-up. It is realizing that people will have more chances of survival if they occupy structures that are built with this thinking in mind. More importantly, the Japanese government implements stringent regulatory frameworks in almost every aspect of governance, especially in the country’s building codes.

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When buildings just sway with the movement of strong winds and earthquakes, people occupying them will have time to evacuate to safer ground, and there are greater chances of survival. Buildings can be retrofitted to be better than they used to be (build back better philosophy).

But lives lost during earthquakes and typhoons are lost forever.

The biggest factor that leads to this kind of sophisticated, structural engineering feats in Japan, Taiwan, and Dubai (among others) is the absence of corruption in ensuring structural integrity. Stringent building regulatory frameworks are required to check on how these structures are able to withstand future extreme events like strong typhoons and earthquakes. The contractors of these buildings did not cut costs and slash the building budgets to fill their pockets.

Clearly, the crumbled pieces of concrete from huge buildings in this city manifested the lack of anticipatory thinking and of a building-back-better philosophy. We already saw how a strong earthquake can cause a building to start cracking, with some of its major parts slowly being broken, piece by piece.

The lack of a stringent building code regulatory system is evidence of the absence of a build-back-better framework. Coupled with this are the ubiquitous acts of corruption that are now part of a twisted, normalized regime in the country’s public works and construction industry.

Should we be exposed to another disaster to realize how corruption and the lack of a build back better philosophy could shock us once again? God forbid.

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