For me, the tragedies that Ondoy and now Sendong have inflicted upon us are not only personal but also political. It is not difficult to grasp the magnitude of what has befallen us because without a doubt, it will happen again. I am inclined to think that ours is indeed a tragedy of political proportions because it brings to focus the shape of things to come. And we know that it is a vicious onethe flash floods will come, the casualties will mount, the people will mourn, the homeless will huddle, the relief goods and services will trickle down, the President will visit, the water will subside, the homeless will rebuild, the settlers will not wise up, the flash floods will come again, and the cycle repeats itself. As things now stand, I cannot imagine an optimistic note. In fact, it leads me to believe that the predicament of our island-nation is a Sisyphean one. Like the myth of Sisyphus, the king who was punished by Zeus to an eternity of rolling a huge rock up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, we are currently consigned to an unending effort of dealing with disaster after disaster, tragedy after tragedy, be they natural or man-made. Can we make sense of our situation? Can we sustain the development of our island-nation without these tragic occurrences? Can we achieve our economic dream by redirecting our scarce capital and development efforts to the seasonal ritual of putting out fires here and there, so to speak? No, we cant, unless we have a cadre of visionary, ethical, no-nonsense, and undistracted leaders who will implement the long-term and drastic solutions to combat the main cause of our tragedythe denudation of our forests. It is a daunting task but a necessary one to undertake because according to Dr. Ben S. Malayang lll, a distinguished Filipino environmentalist, the impact of deforestation is not only compounded by impairments of flooding mitigation events included in the Universal Water Balance Equation i.e., indiscriminate urbanization, unchecked population growth, and poor land use, but also, is exacerbated by the dysfunction of our ecosystemthe biotic and abiotic foundations of our very existence. Is there a historical lesson that we can learn from? Is there a precedent solution that we can emulate? Prof. Jared Diamond, a notable scientist and Pulitzer Prize winner from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), thinks there is. He is convinced that it is the keystone that will determine whether a society collapses or not. A case in point is his query on how the Mayan people failed and the 17th-century Tokugawa shoguns in Japan succeeded. According to Diamond, having exploited their territory, the Mayans and their civilization collapsed because their ruling caste decisively failed to act as they insulated themselves from the effects of deforestation while indiscriminately extracting riches from the forests and brutally exacting servitude from the commoners. On the other hand, the shoguns of 17th-century Tokugawa, Japan, cognizant of the hazardous effects of deforestation to future generations, uncompromisingly pursued drastic measures, such as imposing heavy regulations on farmers, managing the harvest of trees and pushing new, lighter and more efficient construction techniques. Today, Japan is a First World country that is both densely populated and densely forested. Its forest cover stands at 68.5 percent, representing more than two thirds of its total land area. No wonder it is called the eminent forest country in the world. Politically, the outcomes of those past actions speak volumes of what kind of people the Japanese are. What about us? What is the prospect of First World status for the majority of our people? Is it an achievable dream? Or is it just a pipe dream? Well, I am sorry to burst our bubble. But our prospect of achieving First World status is pathetic. Besides, it is unrealistic to expect having such a standard of living for our people without the tall order of sustainable resources, a cadre of leaders with above-mentioned qualities, and the drastic implementation of land use policies to sustain it. With an estimated forest cover hovering at 16 to 25 percent compared to Bruneis 72 percent, Laos 69.9 percent, Malaysias 62.3 percent, Cambodias 57.2 percent, Indonesias 52.1 percent, East Timors 49.9 percent, Myanmars 48.3 percent, Vietnams 44.5 percent, Thailands 37.1 percent, and excluding the tiny First World city-state of Singapore, our Third World island-nation has the thinnest forest cover in Southeast Asia (according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). However, with a deforestation rate of 2 percent annually, our forest cover may completely vanish within the first half of this century. Having denuded our forests, we have slowly but surely undermined the very base of long-term sustainable development of our island-nation. According to the World Commission on Environment and Development (also known as The Bruntland Commission), for development to be sustainable, it must "meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." In the absence of such an uncompromising and single-minded development priority, we are now in a battle for our very survival. Whether we collapse or not as a nation or civilization, it really all depends on having the political will to fight or mitigate the forces that destroy us. What is our possibility of winning? Do we even have a fighting chance? __________________________ The author is a professor of Sociology and director of the Urban Studies Program at California State University, East Bay and an urban and regional planning consultant. Email:efren.padilla@csueastbay.edu

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Are we witnessing the future collapse of our island-nation?