Under the bencha canoe from the Philippines, the water of the Pinagkabalian River has been hitting the hull for several minutes, as the boat is launched at high speed in this narrow channel, towards the islands of Salambao and Binuangan, further offshore, in Manila Bay.
On board, Fabian Santo Tomas, head of the Obando Municipality’s sea rescue team, carefully scans the houses of fishermen at the water’s edge that pass by on each side, all mounted on bamboo stilts and structure of wood with, sometimes, a shy sitting on a tiny line of land.
“These houses, he says, pointing to one of them, in the process of collapsing, are the first ones that we come to evacuate when a typhoon passes. It will start in June or July this year. The Philippines see an average of twenty per year on their territory. The first big one, baptized Betty, sprayed the north of the country on May 30. “The season lasts several months. We hope that this year, it will be less bad than last year. »
In the distance, a rising sun announces the beginning of a calm day in this marine and modest corner of the Philippines, an image which inevitably contrasts with the very dark cloud which advances on these two islands, placed for some years on the line of climate change front. And this, in a country put last year in the first rank of those most exposed in the world to natural disasters, according to the world risk index 2022 (World Risk Index 2022). Ahead of India, Indonesia, Colombia, Mexico…
“The Philippines are highly vulnerable to climate change,” summarizes Rodel Lasco, a pioneer in environmental research in the country and director of the Oscar M. Lopez Center for Climate Change Adaptation, in an interview, “but the communities of Salambao and Binuangan seem to experience first of all what could await the rest of the country in the near future. »
With its herd of houses that look like they’re sitting on the water, this neighborhood in Manila’s remote northern suburbs has had the rustic charm of fishing villages for years, living apart from the rest of the bustling big city. .
“We were once one of the most beautiful parts of Manila Bay,” drops Mercy Dolorito, community leader of Salambao — here, they call her “captain” — while scrolling through a series of photos of time collected in three little albums in faded colors that her husband went to look for in the house. “Look, there were trees here, salt marshes too, where people were working. Salt was also our pride. »
A major typhoon in the 1990s came to permanently cover the basins reserved for the collection of the precious mineral, which were placed on land already in the process of subsiding due to the pumping of groundwater. Of the building where the salt was stored, there are now only three walls forming a wreck off the thin strip of land on which the community is reduced year after year to its simplest expression.
“We were once fantastic land,” says M.me Pain. But now that is no longer the case. »
At the outpost of the worst
According to recent satellite data from the Department of Science and Technology of the Philippines, the clay soil of the Salambao and Binuangan region, by compressing under the effect of the extraction of groundwater, has already begun its sinking , having sunk 4 to 6 cm since 2003. A scenario that makes this territory the outpost showing what the rest of the country would be about to experience…
“Most of the islands that make up the Philippines, like the greater Manila region, are threatened by rising waters, one of the consequences of climate change”, summarizes from his offices in the capital Angelo Kairos Dela Cruz, director of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities. This rise is estimated at between 5.7 and 7 mm per year since the beginning of the century, and thus increases the risk of immersion of several coastal communities in a perspective as close as 10, 15 or 20 years.
“The impact of global warming is four times faster here than anywhere else in the world, since 60% of our cities are on the coast and rest on land that has been compressed by the pumping of groundwater,” he continues. Our geography also places us on the road to typhoons whose intensity is increasing, not to mention that our urban development, not always adapted to this new climatic reality, amplifies all these threats. »
An underdevelopment, one could say rather on the islands of Salambao and Binuangan, where the simplicity of the places just like that of the constructions now expose an obvious fragility that the inhabitants have no other possibility than to look in the face .
“The worst is when the heavy rains of a typhoon arrive at the same time as a high tide”, summarizes Ramona Bernardo, standing on a tiny concrete sidewalk in Salambao bordered on both sides by the waters of the Bay. The 62-year-old was there with her friend Zenaida Tablan, 68, to watch a parade of boats held as part of the religious fiesta on a Sunday in May. “The water is rising to levels we’ve never seen before, it’s covering the streets, entering the houses… And now they evacuate us regularly, to the coast, when there are storms. It never happened before! »
“It’s getting more and more worrying,” drops Rodelio Manalaysay, a local fisherman in his 60s, sitting on a bamboo bench on Binuangan’s narrow main street. Many young people leave the island to study and they don’t come back here. We are told that one day we will have to move. But to go where? My life is here. I don’t have another anywhere else. And I don’t have any money either to do work on my house, to raise it. »
“Typhoons are becoming more and more difficult to face, recognizes Alejandro de la Cruz, a fisherman for 40 years, met on the island of Salambao in a wooden, sheet metal and bamboo hut which is his main residence, where he lives with his wife, Lina, and young son, Apo. But it’s above all the future that scares us the most, because we don’t know what it’s going to be made of. »
In his benchFabian Santo Tomas, a former cruise ship sailor who says he’s visited Montreal on several occasions, remains focused on his visual inspection of residences in the area, which the upcoming typhoon season is expected to put to the test yet again. .
“You see over there, it’s a dike that was built to regulate the rising waters during storms,” he said. There are 11 now. It’s good. But how long will this work, at the rate the water is rising? It’s hard to predict. And it may be that one day it doesn’t work anymore and the people here have to leave. »
This report was funded with support from the Transat-Le Devoir International Journalism Fund.