Feasibility of Risk

As everyone is aware Japan has been plagued with a terrible tragedy; earthquake, tsunami, and possible nuclear meltdown. If things had worked out differently I would be working in Japan right now; probably teaching English somewhere. Who knows, I could have been in Sendai or near Fukushima. But as fate would have it, I am in Manila which according to the statistics is far more dangerous than any Japanese city. Manila is well-known for its pick-pockets and muggings (which I think is kind of unfair since I feel much safer here than I do in a lot of American cities) but Manila is also of course on the edge of the Pacific plate. The eloquently named “Ring of Fire”. There are many earthquakes in the Philippines but not nearly as many as Japan and the Spanish in their infinite wisdom founded Manila on a massive fault line. There have been massive earthquakes here in the past but not since the development of this city into the sprawling mega-metropolitan area it has become. Not only has Manila expanded fast and furiously but its growth has not been hindered by any costly regulation. I have a feeling most of the skyscrapers here are built above their zoned capacity and without any earthquake prevention architecture. If you combine this complete lack of preparedness with the fact that the city of Manila itself is slightly below the sea. Not as drastic as New Orleans but Manila does dip into a bit of a basin. If Manila Bay surged with a tsunami comparable to what happened in Sendai the topography and antiquated drainage infrastructure would spell disaster for this city.

I am not just making inferences. The government of the Philippines commissioned a group of Japanese experts to assess the damage of a serious earthquake here and the result was grim. I can just imagine how those Japanese guys felt when they handed their report over to the government.

“Yeah, you guys are f*cked.”

That was several years ago and the still the report is largely classified. Some would consider keeping a report like that classified is sick and that the people have the right to know what could happen. I understand the government's decision. If they made an official admission to the severity of Manila's lack of preparedness they might actually have to do something. They might have to crack down on the corruption among building officials or, god forbid, administer and actually implement some building regulations. Maybe this is too much to ask. It is not as if they can tear down every building and rebuild anew. The Philippines is still a poor country and the government lacks the resources to completely reinvent the city. And anyway, although the geologists say a major earthquake is due here it might not happen for a long time. It could be tomorrow or five hundred years from now. This is the slow tyranny of geologic time. I don't think an earthquake here will be as bad as Port-Au-Prince but that city was almost completely destroyed. It depresses me because there is a good probability that a major earthquake will happen here within my lifetime. Maybe a lot of people will retreat from the city to the other growing cities of Cebu, Davao, Baguio, etc. and abandon Manila as too dangerous but that's not at all realistic. The cruel irony is that Manila is the symbol of opportunity for a large of Filipinos that come here but it has the possibility of developing into a serious humanitarian crisis in the near future.

But maybe it's not good to brood over a supposedly dim future. Maybe God will, for once, spare the Philippines from a tragedy. What really is the point to constantly reaching for security? The Japanese were as prepared as any country can be but still the outcome is tragic. Look at the suburbs of the United States. They are degenerating from a transitional field of the busy city life to the quiet countryside into a haven of paranoia. The truth is, the more you seek security the less secure you feel. Residents of Manila are daily subjected to the uncertainty and so I believe the people here are strong compared to their counterparts in other major cities. Some visitors might feel uncomfortable here but they should really wake up. There is no city on Earth that is completely safe. It is healthy instinct to confront and embrace danger. When I was young I secretly wanted to buy a massive boa constrictor to keep in my room. It would have been a massive snake; willing to kill me at any given moment. I still think today that is in important to keep the possibility of death close at hand because just as Japanese culture has so eloquently expressed itself through poetry that this life is inevitably transient, we should also not live in the delusion that we can preserve ourselves forever.


春の夜の浮橋とだえして峰に別るる横の空
藤原の定家