Frances Nicole Muldong
12 – St. Christopher
NDRRMC: Too many cooks spoil the broth
The law creating the NDRRMC may have its innovations, but it fails Yolanda's horrific test
REACTION PAPER
It was my first time knowing insightful stories regarding this issue, the occurrence of
Typhoon Yolanda that happened last November 2013. The only fact I am aware of is that it has
caused thousands and thousands of casualties and that it is considered as one of the strongest
typhoons recorded until today. Little did I know that it is indeed recorded as the most destructive
typhoon of modern era, claimed more than 6,300 lives in the Philippines, not to mention the
deaths it caused to other parts of the Southeast Asian region. But upon reading this article from
Rappler, it made me have another perceptive about this certain matter.
After reading the article, I could say that it made me feel some anger towards the ones
responsible for it. From the title itself, you would already have an idea on what will be tackled in
it, “too many cooks spoil the broth”. Anger is what I have felt because the efforts were all wasted
and the time spent as well. As mentioned from the article, 48 hours before Yolanda (Haiyan) hit
land on November 8, NDRRMC, its operation center was already on a red status alert. Several
government departments had already taken out their own tasks. Specifically, the Department of
Science and Technology was in charged for disaster prevention and mitigation, Department of
the Interior and Local Government for disaster preparedness, DSWD for the overall
responsibility rests and the National Economic and Development Authority for disaster
rehabilitation and recovery as mandated from the law. But with all these preparation from
different sectors, Typhoon Yolanda still won. It was mainly because there were too many people
involved in a mission, all trying to do the same thing so in the end; it still didn’t work at all.
From the previous calamities and catastrophes that happened, the different assignments were at
place but this Typhoon Yolanda went different. For me, it looked like the ones responsible were
even the ones confused on who is in charge of this and that and I have also observed that they
were blaming each other instead of working out at each plan which makes everything complex.
There were so many bosses that the aid workers got frustrated who to follow and that nobody
makes decisions.
Sometimes, our leaders are the problem. About this topic, they could just make it simpler
by focusing on one task and let others do their own. There were a lot of volunteers present to
reach a hand and help but they were also affected by the ‘misleading leadership’ of the leaders.
As said by leadership guru John Maxwell, “Everything rises and falls with leadership”.
However, on the positive side of the story, this happening or incident may help in some ways
because we should have known what to do for next time and should not let anything like this
happen again or else, it could be worse. In the huge number of calamities and catastrophes that
we experience every year, we should strengthen more on risk reduction investment planning and
regulations and enhance financial capacity to manage natural disaster risk as well.
