When the skies finally calm and the floodwaters recede, what remains is far more than wet hous-es and broken trees: The debris that floats tell a deeper story. Two recent storms — first Typhoon Tino (international name Kalmaegi) and then Super Typhoon Uwan (international name Fung-wong) — did not simply test our emergency-response systems. They exposed the errors in our lifestyles and how we live with nature.

Typhoon Tino battered the Visayas region. Tino had maximum sustained winds of 150 kph near the center and gustiness of up to 205 kph when it made its initial landfall.

Super Typhoon Uwan made landfall in Northeastern Luzon with sustained winds of up to 185 km/h, and gusts reaching 230 km/h.

These are formidable figures. But the damage and the flood-debris are what really show how deep the vulnerabilities go.

Every time a typhoon or monsoon rain event hits, the floodwaters carry more than water: they carry the outcome of our land use choices, our ignored drain systems, our buried rivers and ne-glected slopes.

I recall from my reporter days in the early 1990s in Negros Occidental: a log-pond in the moun-tains was unleashed after heavy rains. Large logs — one to two feet in diameter — rolled down the hillside, destroyed crops and houses, and landed on a mountain road, blocking traffic and undermining roadsides. The natural slope had been destabilized; the logs became the floodwa-ter’s freight.

On another occasion, floodwaters in Metro Manila carried mounds of plastic bags and containers: trash that had washed into creeks, rivers clogged by informal dumping, only to rise up and flood low-lying neighborhoods. That reopened discussions on the tetra-pack and sachet packaging of products, and the implementation of Republic Act No. 11898 or the Extended Producer Re-sponsibility (EPR) Act of 2022, which holds companies accountable for managing the environ-mental impact of their product packaging throughout its life cycle.

And still another instance: Floodwaters made obvious how rivers and creeks were covered by structures, built over, narrowed, constrained. The water simply overflowed because its channel was blocked.

Recently, in the province of Bulacan — a flood lasted for days, and investigations later pointed to the reclamation project stretching from Cavite to Bulacan. This has been flagged as possibly altering flood-patterns in that low-lying area.

Case in point: The government has launched a probe into multiple “ghost” or anomalous flood-control projects in Bulacan. The Department of Justice has subpoenaed officials over flood-control project cases. These alleged projects may have been substandard or incomplete, reducing effectiveness just when floods came.

In short: What the floodwaters carry — logs, plastics, debris, buildings in the way, blocked riv-erbeds — is the physical evidence of what we did wrong.

If the debris tells the story of our failures, then what are we doing about those failures?

Here are some things that have been done:

Some flood-control structures have been built: embankments, dikes, river-protection works. For example, the President inspected river-protection structures in Bulacan and demanded answers about substandard construction and failure to dredge or desilt.

The DOJ and other bodies are investigating anomalous flood-control projects, calling out malver-sation, falsification of public documents, graft.

Forecasting and early-warning systems are in active use for storms like Tino and Uwan, with sig-nals raised, evacuations prepared, coast guard and DRRM offices mobilized. For example, for Tino, warnings for intense rainfall and possible landslides were issued.

But more still needs to be done:

• Enforcement of riparian buffers and prevention of building over riverbeds: We must keep natu-ral drainage channels free, not cover them with structures.

• Strict oversight of flood-control and reclamation projects: The Bulacan example shows how substandard work or mismanagement can render major works ineffective just when they are needed.

• Waste control and river-cleaning: The accumulation of plastic and other debris makes water-ways even more vulnerable to flood surges and blockages.

• Integrating land use planning with hazard maps: Low lying areas, floodplains, reclaimed zones need extra caution. For example, the reclamation work in Bulacan may have changed how water flows during floods.

• Resettlement or relocation of communities from high-risk flood zones, so that homes and lives are not repeatedly exposed to the same hazard.

When the floodwaters rise, the stories carried in the currents are more than tragedy—they are in-dictments of how we have treated nature’s course. The storms themselves—Tino and Uwan—are part of the natural system; but the extent of damage, the ease of overflow, the vastness of de-struction reflect human choices. We left the rivers with too many obstacles, the slopes too bare, the waste too much, the houses too close, the floodplains too built upon.

When Tino unleashed winds of 140 km/h and gusts up to 195 km/h; or when Uwan hammered Luzon with 185 km/h sustained winds and 230 km/h gusts, the consequence was not only na-ture’s violence—it was nature encountering our neglect and mis-management.

The question now: Will we listen to the story in the debris? Will we restore how rivers work, how water flows, how we build—or will we rebuild homes and roads and wait for the next storm? Are we treating the symptom (houses flooded) or the disease (our disregard of the natural water system)?

The flood-waters have told the story. Let’s hope we learn it. (Email: [email protected])