
“You can’t calm the storm to stop trying, what you can do is calm yourself and the storm will pass.” – Anonymous
There are 18-20 storms that will hit the country this year. Surprisingly, there are only about 5 that have hit us, to date, yet floods are on record highs, particularly urban areas such as Metro Manila. Floods are traumatic, destroying properties and livelihood and unleashing fury causing deaths. Since super typhoon Yolanda we have become victims of natural disasters given our geographic location. The Philippines sits on the ring of fire highly vulnerable to natural disasters.
ACCOUNTING ECONOMIC COST
How much have natural disasters caused as we continue reeling in the hardest of times these disasters brought? From 2013 until 2022, 30 billion pesos were lost to natural disasters because we are located on a horseshoe of the Pacific engulfing an area of 40,000 kilometers that spells disasters. The recent floods that wrecked the Philippines wiped properties, destroyed agriculture, and vanished people’s lives.
Just recently, typhoon Carina troubled 600,000 Filipinos and capsized an oil tanker in the central Philippine coast. She left 13 people dead and had a significant impact on agriculture, from Ilocos region to Zamboanga Peninsula, with an estimated damage of 3 billion pesos that included irrigation systems, crops, and fisheries. It also displaced 100,000 small farmers with 57,000 hectares of agricultural lands devastated. Fortunately, its recovery according to the agriculture department is at 72%.
This month typhoon Enteng caused rainfall and flooding in various parts of Luzon and Eastern Visayas and left destruction creating losses with more than 1B pesos to agriculture and infrastructure. The PAGASA forecasts between 10 to 16 more typhoons will hit the country for the remainder of the year.
LIVES VANISHED
More than the damage to property and agricultural devastation, lives were not spared from natural disasters in the past decade. From 2012 to 2023 the total lives lost was 10,298, with super typhoon Yolanda comprising more than 50% of the number. She was one of the deadliest typhoons, causing over 6,200 deaths. In 2020 alone typhoon Ulysses resulted in 98 lives lost. Last year, 100 people died from natural disasters, while there are no official records as yet for this year. But with PAGASA’s projection of 18 storms about to hit for the rest of the year, we can only hope that no more lives will vanish, or at least only a few should there be any.
‘HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL’
Despite the never ending natural disasters, “the Philippine economy is on track, and we are confident to achieve a 6 to 7 percent growth target despite recent typhoons”, according to NEDA chief Arsenio Balisacan. The real GDP grew by an average of 6% in the first half of the year while inflation fell to a 7-month low of 3.3 in August. The low inflation including “policy rates and robust labor market will help domestic demand for food afloat”, NEDA added.
For his part, World Bank’s lead economist Gonzalo Varela asserted during the recent 22nd International CEO Conference that “the threat of climate change is becoming a reality, and the Philippines should be able to adapt by putting in-place shared resilient infrastructure.” The government is rolling out 186 infra-flagship projects from medium to long term spending more than 1 trillion peso or 5.6% of GDP this year.
The Philippines is the top country in the world in terms of disaster risks and ranks fourth among countries most affected by climate change with 83% of Filipinos exposed to its impacts, as cited by Philippine Climate Change Development Report. Take note that we are also susceptible to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.
IS GOVERNMENT GEARING UP?
Is the government doing enough to become more resilient and adaptive to the impact of climate change? It is the local government units which are the front liners but how prepared they are remains a big question, clouded with doubts. As of 2022, the government has spent almost half a trillion, but this expenditure was way higher on mitigation than on prevention. We are a country loaded with policies on climate change reduction, resiliency, mitigation, and adaptation, yet unconsolidated and uncoordinated with no single trajectory under a prescribed timeframe.
We have lost an almost unthinkable amount of resources and lives, where climate change threats can only get worse. We cannot afford to lose more out of unpreparedness spending only in utmost reactiveness.*