From resilient Filipinos to a resilient Philippines

Two weeks after typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan), one of the most powerful storms ever recorded, remarkable tales of resilience continue to be told from across the devastated areas. Despite the tragedy, not only was there no great despair, but also the whole population seems to have banded together to assist those in need.

The tremendous spirit of the millions of Filipinos — the poor families, local farmers, fishermen in the affected areas, and those in the rest of the country and outside — has provided a beacon of hope for the whole country and the wider world.

But this innate resiliency of the people has recently also worked its way into the national systems. The 2009 Climate Change Act, the 2010 Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act, and many other laws such as the 2012 creation of the survival fund has helped the country’s paradigm shift from a disaster response-focused approach to one that is proactive and focused on reducing risk.

Yet the scale of the disaster brought about by Yolanda remains difficult to comprehend. Latest government figures state 13 million people are affected, 4 million people are displaced, 2.5 million are in need of food aid, and 1 million homes are damaged. Such bold headline statistics can only hint at the actual suffering that continues across the nine regions affected.

Clearly some important lessons should be learnt from the tragedy. Early warnings were given, particularly in terms of the devastating storm surges, but often these were either not understood or heeded.

Critical infrastructure, such as roads, schools and hospitals, needs to be strengthened and the livelihoods of the most vulnerable and exposed communities need to be better protected.

Over the years, Tacloban has experienced several extreme weather events but this is the third time in only 116 years that the city has been more or less destroyed; 1897 and 1912 being the other two occasions, with the two typhoons reportedly killing a total of 22,000 people.

However, excellent examples of disaster risk management already exist in the Philippines; the challenge is to make them the norm across the country. For example the prompt evacuation of the tiny island of Tulang Diyot, to nearby San Francisco, in the Camotes Islands, a day ahead of typhoon Yolanda saved 1,000 lives as the storm destroyed all 500 homes on the islet. As impressive is the fact that no fatalities were reported on the main island of San Francisco, home to 48,000 people, because of a series of well-planned evacuations.

The many excellent initiatives mentioned above should be consolidated within a longer-term vision of reconstruction that will reduce the vulnerability and exposure of communities to hazards. This reconstruction will, of course, be physical but also has to encompass strengthening social, economic, health and environmental resilience.

This massive effort should not recreate the same risks for communities and local businesses. It requires: stronger livelihoods, government safety nets based on conditional cash transfers, more resilient infrastructure — including schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, utility supplies, ports, and airports — and local government with more capacity not just to respond but in disaster management as a whole.

Just as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami transformed how affected countries committed themselves to disaster risk reduction, so too Typhoon Yolanda will lead to many positive changes for the benefit of present and future generations.

Filipinos are nothing if not resilient in the face of multiple calamities.

What is needed now is the embodiment of much of what is already there: a shift from intent to action. This will not only change the Philippines but the whole world as it addresses new thresholds of danger and calamity propelled by environmental degradation, poor land use and urban planning, population growth and poverty.

The lessons to be learned from Typhoon Yolanda will have wider application across the world and must be incorporated into the new 2015 global agreement on disaster risk reduction, which will succeed the current Hyogo Framework for Action.

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(Margareta Wahlström is the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Head of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR). She is on a long-planned official visit to the Philippines this week.)