Government

After the Great East Japan Earthquake that hit the Tohoku region of Japan in March 2011, the Philippine media quickly began reporting horror stories about what would happen if a big earthquake were to hit Metro Manila. Apparently, studies earlier this decade—some of which were kept secret by the government for a number of years—showed that we are woefully unprepared.

However, most of the discussion focused on what needs to be done on a governmental level; there was very little advice about what we as individuals could do to prepare ourselves. As I began to do some research, I found that many resources are available online but most are United States-centric.

While the principles of preparedness are independent of location and scenario, I thought it would be useful to have some information set in a context for the specific needs of Metro Manila inhabitants. My aim is for this website to fill that gap.

What we can do

During a large-scale natural or man-made disaster, we cannot expect to depend on emergency services or the government; all resources will be stretched to their limit. Our neighbors and friends will also be busy trying to save their own family and property. It may be several days or even weeks before help comes so we must plan to help ourselves until the crisis passes.

Nevertheless, helping yourself doesn't mean isolating yourself. Depending on the scale of the disaster, we may also need to help with rebuilding our community afterwards.

Preparedness begins at home

We may hear that Manila is not prepared to handle a major disaster but there are many things we can do to minimize the impact to our own families. Preparedness begins at home and preparing Manila means ensuring that enough families take simple steps to look after themselves.

Please visit preparemanila.org and join the discussion on how we can build a more resilient city by preparing our own households.

“Liberty never came from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist the concentration of power we are resisting the powers of death. Concentration of power precedes the destruction of human liberties.”

- Woodrow Wilson, address to the New York Press Club on September 9, 1912

"If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear."

We hear this whenever the government wants to put in place some new invasive legislation. It's interesting to see how governments react now that Wikileaks has turned the tables.

Perversely, it was really only after a bunch of politicians were embarrassed that the knives came out. All of a sudden, WikiLeaks' director and figurehead, Julian Assange, is a terrorist, rapist and all around enemy of the state. Nevermind that we're talking about documented evidence that these politicians were actually engaged in wrong-doing; the messengers are now the bad guys for delivering the truth.

In times past, some secret government agency would probably have had Assange quietly 'disappeared'. But now in the age of blogs, social media and the Streisand effect, it's a little more difficult to keep the lid on information. After being forced offline by denial of service attacks, WikiLeaks quickly spawned mirrors all over the world:

• http://www.wikileaks.ch
• http://213.251.145.96
• http://88.80.13.160
• http://wikileaks.de
• http://wikileaks.fi
• http://wikileaks.nl
• http://wikileaks.de
• http://wikileaks.sparklebacon.net
• http://wi.kileaks.com

Welcome to politics of the 21st Century. It looks sort of like a Hollywood spy thriller.

This debate¹ is not really about guns, crime or even corruption, but two different world-views.

One is where people believe that responsibility for your life lies with someone else, and that other people know better about how you should live. That is a world-view of dependence and authoritarianism.

The other is one of self-reliance—that responsibility for your life and your family begins with yourself.

Petals ² demands that government should be 100% effective in defending him and his family. But who is the government but a group of people? In other words, Petals insists that someone else takes care of his family. He demands that others risk their lives for him. So sure is he of these convictions that he advocates that everyone else should be forced to do the same. These are heavy demands to make of strangers!

Expecting the government to guarantee us a safe and happy life is a fool's dream. There have always been bad people who want to harm innocents. Sometimes these people are labeled criminals or sociopaths. Oftentimes in history, they have been from the government itself.

Still, there are those out there who say, "Leave it to the government. They will take care of us!" But did the government prevent the Maguindanao massacre? More recently, were the police able to protect those poor tourists during the Mendoza bus hijack?

The truth is that we alone have the primary responsibility to take care of ourselves and our families. The government can be there to provide support, but safeguarding an individual's life is not the government's job.

Walang armas ang demokrasya ("democracy doesn't have weapons"), says Petals. Such platitudes may sound righteous but are completely meaningless. Tell that to the victims in the 'Democratic' Republic of Congo, where world's second-largest peacekeeping force were unable to prevent 7,000 rapes and 1,433 civilian killings in 2009. (Source: Genocide Intervention Network)

Freedom is protected by strength and arms. Eloquent speeches and the ability to vote are worth nothing if someone has a gun to your head. The only thing that keeps that gun away is another gun.

1. This post is an edited version of my contribution to a firearms discussion on President Noynoy Aquino's Facebook page.

2. 'Petals' is the nickname that people have given to one of the vocal gun control advocates on the discussion. I'd say that you can use him as a stand-in for progressives in general.

A debate between Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio and Michael Badnarik, 2004 Libertarian Presidential Candidate.

“
In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace.”