Floods and landslides following typhoon and southwest monsoon rains ravaged recently the National Capital Region, large parts of Luzon, and as far as Visayas and Mindanao. Water rushed down from denuded mountains causing landslides, overflowing silted rivers, and inundating vast fields in the plains. Cities were flooded as a result of overlapping infrastructure projects and reclamations that blocked waterways, as well as failed flood control system.

Nearly 50 people died and millions suffered. Millions of pesos worth of homes and property, infrastructure, crops and livelihoods were destroyed. The vulnerability of millions of poor families living in shanties, where they have little protection against typhoon winds and rains, was once again exposed.

Marcos’ claims during his State of Nation Address, two days before the flooding, that his government is “ready” for any storm to come, was exposed as hollow and pure nonesense. The boasted 5,500 flood control projects, for which his government spent more than ₱255 billion last year, proved futile.

In recent years, disasters have become more frequent and more devastating to people’s lives and livelihoods. This is the result, not only of climate change, which brings extreme heat or extreme rainfall, but more so of the gross failure and neglect of the reactionary state. The Marcos regime has allowed the wanton destruction of forests and the plundering of the environment to continue, causing even greater damage to the lives and livelihoods of the masses.

Party forces and the national-democratic movement acted promptly to assist the masses amid the calamity. Many of them were also among the victims of flooding and the destruction of homes and property. Their swift response to calamity was a display of solidarity with the people’s suffering, a readiness to act to alleviate their suffering, and a consciousness to mobilize and harness the strength of the masses.

In the ravaged areas, the entire Party machinery was mobilized to collect water, food, clothing and other emergency necessities, and work with various agencies and service organizations to immediately deliver them to the victims. At the same time, they raise the masses’ understanding of the causes of the disaster and the need to act together in order to collectively rise from the tragedy and defend their rights.

Strengthening the mass movement and its Party leadership is the key to the masses’ effective response to disasters. On the other hand, responding to the disasters strengthen the mass movement and cultivates the initiative and spirit of collective action, solidarity and cooperation of the masses. Thus, it is necessary that where the masses suffer, the Party, the revolutionaries and democratic mass organizations act to raise the masses’ consciousness and ability to respond to calamities.

In the face of calamities, it must be taught that solidarity and mutual aid are necessary, but not sufficient. It is necessary to raise the social awareness and political consciousness of people that their sufferings are the result not of nature’s contempt or “God’s punishment” but of the actions of foreign and local big capitalists whose greed drives them to plunder nature and the public funds.

The people must focus on holding the US-Marcos regime and the entire reactionary state accountable for the policies and failures that aggravate the scourge of disasters on the masses. They must resist the reactionary government’s program that prioritize mining, plantation expansion, land conversion for real estate projects, land reclamations, megadam construction, and others.

Worse, bureaucrats take advantage of disasters to pocket loads of profit and bureaucratic loot. The absence of a long-term or general flood control plan must be exposed, and the hundreds of billions of pesos of public funds allocated to “flood control” projects must be revealed as a milking cow for bureaucrat capitalists and business cronies.

The masses must hold the reactionary government accountable for the harm devastation to their lives, livelihoods and property by its failure to fulfill its sworn duty to ensure the safety and well-being of the Filipino people. More than aid, social justice is the cry of the people.

In the guerrilla fronts, along with the New People’s Army, organs of political power must be built or strengthened to implement policies that protect the environment, ban destructive projects, and impose sanctions on operations that plunder mountains, forests and rivers, and seize the land of the peasant masses and minority people. The masses must be mobilized to prepare for future disasters.

The recent calamity will certainly not be the last to ravage the masses of the Filipino people. Experts say the La Niña phenomenon will begin to form between August and October, which is expected to bring more rains. This is bound to bring more suffering to the Filipino masses especially in the face of the deepening crisis, rising prices of rice, meat, vegetables and other food and basic goods, and the extremely low wages and incomes of the people.

The coming crisis and calamity pose a great challenge and opportunity for the Party to lead and strengthen the entire revolutionary movement as the people’s weapon to defend their well-being. All Party cadres and members should use all their ability and strength to take root and expand among the masses, to arouse, organize and mobilize the people as an even more powerful force to end all the scourges under the oppressive and exploitative system.