The current flood crisis: Lessons learned

The recalcitrance to declare the state of emergency over the inundated areas in the early stage was a huge blunder because it could have mitigated some the serious overflows of huge-volume freshwater that now inundated Ayutthaya and other areas surrounding Bangkok and lessened human toll and properties of some 2.4 million people in 28 of 77 provinces. The disaster is so gigantic that all stakeholders must be mobilized and worked together. But the fear that the military would use the opportunity to further consolidate their power and growing role in the wider Thai polity prevented the government to use the emergency decree that would allow better coordination and policy execution of all agencies.

Instead, on Friday Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra invoked the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Act which put her on the top of commanding chain in all nation-wide relief efforts, supplanting all other government agencies including the special administrative zones. Earlier the opposition and leading business communities have urged the government to declare the state of emergency to increase the efficiency of relief efforts. In more ways than one, her action was a bit late as floodtide has hit the out-lying area of the Bangkok Metropolitan. In fact, a better dialogue and reduced self-esteemed could be a better mechanism in reducing the fault lines of law enforcement and find common approaches – a win-win situation.

Until last weekend, the government treated the matter in a very partisan way, as if the Pheu Thai had the magic power to cope with the massive flood. The Flood Relief Operation Command was rudderless and failed to gain trust as released information were not accurate and timely. What were said and being implemented were completely different for peoples in affected areas to act promptly. With different concerns and interest, each community and individual has to protect its own. Therefore, it caused great despairs and pain – the collective panics that the country had never confronted before. Truth be told, the government was a bit over confident that it would be able to handle and got away with long lists of planned compensation, failure to realize the full extent of the floodtide that followed and swamped all industrial estates in their wakes. Nearly 650,000 workers were affected by shut-down of more 1,700 factories which owned and operated by foreign investors.

Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra added salts into the wounds when he continued to ridicule the military’s public role when soldiers could help with the relief operation. The ongoing attempt to amend regulations of the Defence Ministry Act – a check and balance mechanism to ensure transparency and meddling from politicians put in place in 2007 – also dampened any perceived cooperation. His condescending attitude immediately placed his sister in a dilemma whether to seek full-scale assistance from the military. That helped explain why the military were also a bit awkward in providing a full-scale assistance. Doing too little or too much could be criticized and caused unease especially with the current Pheu Thai leaders.

Indeed, the government and military could have done a better job if they have established a mutual trust. In the Philippines, for instance, the army is the key organization to handle natural disaster because they are better equipped and organized. Although Thailand and the Philippines military have a similar reputation when politics is involved, the Filipino politicians are more pragmatic and do allow their soldiers to have a larger role in relief operation. In fact, back in the mid 1990’s, the Thai Defence Ministry planned to set up a disaster relief center but the idea failed to take off the ground even though there were urgent needs after major flood ravaged the south in 1983, followed by Bangkok’s flood in 1995 and Gay monsoon in 1998.

It was in 2002 that the same idea was realized as the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation but came under the control of Ministry of Interior with a budget of nearly Bt3 billion in 2010. The sluggish response was due to the concerned agencies’ unpreparedness and lacking of preventive approaches. The Thai officials prefer to provide day-to-day assistance and relief operations, which has been the focal point as reported in the media daily. In fact, some provinces affected by the flood including those untouched region, have already squandered their annual disaster prevention budget given by Ministry of Interior as bonus and incentives at both provincial and district levels.

In coming days, the government must now come up with a long term rehabilitation plan because the flood will stay for sometimes and damages to the economy is far greater that any political upheaval or disaster the country has ever encountered. From 2002-2010, more than 1,000 people were killed by tropical storms during rainy season which cost the country more than Bt40 billion. However, this time the economic loss could exceed Bt120 billion and will take years to recovery, if at all. With the populist policies run at full throttles, the government has yet to spell out a clear path how it can pursue these multi-layer goals of fulfilling money-giving schemes backing the popular sentiments it won in January. Already, the country’s economic future looks grim with a reduced growth rate of nearly 1.7 per cent from the forecast of between 3.5 to 4.5 per cent earlier stated by the Ministry of Finance.

Finally, Yingluck has to stop acting that she knows what she is talking about – something which her supporters often mistakenly described as the display of her leadership. Indeed, this crisis has given her, the country and its people an opportunity to open a new dialogue – a catalyst of sort – that is not based on color idiosyncrasy or political shenanigans. Somehow, she has not yet realized this golden window. If she is serious to show leadership it is pivotal to get the people from all walks of life to sit down and work out a long term plan of national preparedness because the floodtide will not go away as it will come back over and over again.

Since we cannot change the infrastructures of urban areas and those ugly landscapes, the country really needs a better disaster management system, which must include both man-made and natural disasters. Most importantly, this catastrophe shows that the public in general do not understand the nature of disasters and relief efforts very well. Increasing awareness and education for the public is a must. So is the community-based organizations and their volunteers must be trained to cope with disasters of all forms.

If she can pull this off, it will be to her credit and leadership’s quality. Not the kind of stuffs, one sees with eye-popping on TV every day.