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Water proofing

The inclement weather of last week, caused by the southwest monsoon or habagat, and enhanced by the tropical storm parade of Ferdie, Helen, and Gener, is estimated to have cost almost P150 million in damage to agriculture, caused the evacuation of more than 10,000 individuals, destroyed 45 homes, and had two casualties.

Face to face classes in most schools of the province were suspended almost all week, as school kids and teachers had to turn to alternative methods of learning because of the poor weather.

All this destruction and inconvenience was despite having no storm signal hoisted over the affected areas, which makes us wonder how bad things are going to get if we even just get to typhoon signal number 1.

Are our towns, cities, crops, homes and schools becoming weaker, or are the storms just becoming stronger these days? If the answer is all of the above, then it looks like we are going to have to deal with these kinds of losses regularly, as our country sits right on the Typhoon Belt and we usually go through all 26 letters of the alphabet in terms of typhoons every year.

When it comes to crops, fisheries, and livestock, there doesn’t seem to be much we can do as we cannot shield those produce from the winds and rain. Maybe additional research can produce varieties that are more storm resistant, but their exposure to the elements mean there isn’t really much our farmers can do but hope and pray the damage won’t be so bad. Expanding crop insurance coverage could also help offset the financial losses, but in terms of actually making crops climate resilient, our farmers don’t seem to have a lot of options available.

When it comes to evacuations and damaged homes, our towns and cities will either need to make the evacuation centers better, enforce the building code to ensure better built and climate resilient homes, and move the ones that were allowed to be built in dangerous areas, so evacuations are not necessary every time heavy rains are expected.

These are local government unit concerns which are sadly forgotten as soon as the skies clear up and the flood waters recede. That is why most still don’t have proper evacuation centers, which are still necessary because people continue to live in areas that have been proven to be flood prone and dangerous when the weather turns bad.

If LGUs can relocate the homes that have been built in floodplains or river banks, there wouldn’t be a need to evacuate so many people every time. However, doing that will require a lot of political will because it will involve kicking people out of their homes and moving them somewhere else, which is something elected officials don’t really want to do. But if they are successful, there’d be less evacuations required every time and as a bonus, those freed up areas would make for great green public spaces.

As for schools, the era of online classrooms has really made it so much easier to suspend classes, which probably explains why it happens more these days. However, our local officials also need to see it as a challenge that has to be addressed, as the rest of the population still have to use public transportation and infrastructure during these days of bad weather. Just because the school kids get to stay at home, it doesn’t mean that they can give up on climate proofing public transportation, roads, and sidewalks, because everyone else still needs to use it, rain or shine. Providing shade for protection from sun and rain, flood prevention, and ensuring that public transportation is not interrupted by the slightest inclement weather are all issues that mayors and city councils need to address if our towns and cities are going to be climate resilient. With the climate expected to change for the worse before it gets even close to getting better, baking in climate resiliency for our towns and cities needs to be a priority.

The older people complain that they are not waterproof whenever they hear of the ease at which classes are suspended. However, if you come to think of it, if classes for college kids and work were just as easily suspended every time the weather turns bad, what would be the impact on the country’s productivity and the economy? It is therefore the duty of our local officials to make our towns and cities into the type that cannot be easily shut down by inclement weather, simply because its infrastructure and services can go on, without much disturbance, in most kinds of weather.

Climate change is upon us, there is no debate about that anymore. Suspending classes and work, or evacuating people from the same old places every time the weather turns sour is not a climate resilient solution. Humans may not be “waterproof” but our communities need to evolve to be able to handle the change. How quickly that evolution happens is up to the quality of our leaders.*         

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