A recent report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has noted that despite the Philippines’ multilayered disaster risk financing (DRF) framework which includes national contingency funds, quick response funds, catastrophic bonds, local risk pools, and micro insurance – more focus is still needed on prevention as most resources are still channeled toward emergency response and rehabilitation.
It noted that the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Funds (LDRRMF) and the People’s Survival Fund play key roles in the country’s DRF, with the LDRRMF requiring local governments to allocate 5 percent of their budgets for disaster risk reduction. However, the LDRRMF has largely funded post disaster response and recovery, while preventive measures have received only a limited share.
“It is highlighted that disaster funds at both national and local levels have mostly been used for emergency response, recovery, and rehabilitation, at the detriment of risk prevention,” the OECD said in its Economic Outlook on Enhancing Disaster Risk Financing report.
In the last quarter of 2025, the country was hit by back-to-back typhoons and major earthquakes, leaving millions affected and straining disaster response systems. It revealed how vulnerable communities remain, even with established disaster funds.
“Strengthening local government unit’ capacity and improving the monitoring of preventive spending, along with better connecting local financing with planning frameworks, is critical to moving from reactive to preventive disaster risk financing,” the OECD said.
Other challenges it identified facing the country are capacity constraints, uneven technical expertise, and fragmented legal and institutional frameworks.
Despite our vast experience with natural disasters that should’ve given us all the information we need to institute a world class risk prevention system, especially in the most vulnerable areas and communities in the country that face major disasters nearly every year, our preferred method of disaster response remains reactive, focusing on emergency response, recovery, and rehabilitation year in and year out.
We may not be able to prevent the storms that are getting more and more powerful from coming, volcanos erupting, or earthquakes occurring, but there are certainly ways to prevent the losses in life, property, crops, and infrastructure that we have already come to expect by now. Maybe it is high time we put more focus into that effort, so we don’t have to spend so much on reacting to the expected.*
