Quartered

There used to be an extremely cruel method for punishing sinners in Medieval Europe.

- ALEX MAGNO

The poor victims were “quartered and drawn,” hands and feet tied to four different horses. On signal, horses tore the body apart.

It was, to say the least, a rather unpleasant way to die.

Being quartered and drawn is how I begin imagining our nation these days. Since the flood control scandal broke out in all its obscene glory, natural calamities have visited in nearly continuous stream. Flooding events, earthquakes up and down the archipelago’s spine and, finally, threats of eruptions from some of our most gorgeous volcanos.

It is all coincidental, of course. Nature is not conspiring to destroy us. We are pretty much doing a good job at killing our nation.

The job we are doing involves ultimately denying our archipelago the means to support the population it now has. We hinder trade and commerce because of bad logistics. Our public works are weak and fragile.

The great civilizations built things to last forever: the pyramids, the majestic Roman architectural feats and the Great Wall. To this day, the nations descended from these civilizations continue to draw economic gains from what their ancestors built thousands of years before.

By comparison, a DPWH flood control project is not designed to survive the next bout with rain. “Substandard” does not even begin to describe the mettle of what was built — if it was built at all. The structures that are supposed to hold back floods melt at first blush.