Climate change trips

By God’s graces, our country was just grazed by the super typhoon called “Betty” over the weekend. With the international name “Mawar,” it could have brought another catastrophic magnitude of damages, especially to a disaster-prone country like the Philippines. We heave a collective sigh of relief that we got spared from major destruction and almost zero loss of lives.

Credit goes to the so-called “whole of government” early preparations and pre-positioning of men, equipment and resources. Even if “Betty” moved far away from our country, it is better to be safe than sorry.

Typhoon “Betty” is just the second tropical cyclone that hit and crossed the Philippines this year. Our country is visited by an average of 20 typhoons each year. In March this year, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) declared that the dry season is expected to last until May.

“Betty” passed us by despite PAGASA predictions of early onset of the El Niño phenomenon. PAGASA projected the long dry spell will develop in our country in the third quarter of 2023 and “may persist until 2024.” El Niño increases the likelihood of below-normal rainfall conditions. PAGASA warns this could lead to droughts in some areas of the Philippines even while habagat pulls in tropical storms to enter our country.

That’s how erratic climate change has drastically altered our normal weather patterns.

Thus, we cannot solely blame PAGASA weather experts for the faulty weather predictions. As the primary weather monitor, climate change is no excuse though for PAGASA to be woefully way off the mark in tracking the erratic movements of super typhoon “Betty.”

No less than President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) himself fully understands and pro-actively addresses the challenges of climate change. PBBM has been espousing the need for climate change adaptation measures in every opportunity to highlight them in his speeches. “We cannot avoid talking about climate change and the effects of climate change and the changes that we have to do or the way we work because we have to adjust to climate change. We have to adapt to the effects of climate change,” PBBM pointed out in his recent speech at the inauguration of the ACEN windmills farm in Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte.

But I can’t for the life of me understand why Philippine government officials would go abroad on talk-athon conferences related to climate change. In a press and photo release last Friday, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) bandied about a Philippine delegation flying to New York for a three-day conference held at the United Nations from May 18-20.

The same press and photo release claimed it was PBBM who “designated” DENR Secretary Antonia Loyzaga to head the Philippine delegation to the UN High-Level Meeting on the Midterm Review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR). From Google, it reported the High-Level Meeting was convened by the President of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) under the theme “Working Together to Reduce Risk for a Resilient Future.”

The DENR photo release showed the Philippine delegation Secretary Loyzaga and several other officials from the DENR who included Undersecretary and Chief of Staff Marilou Erni. Several other officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA); the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA); the Department of National Defense-Office of Civil Defense headed by Assistant Secretary Ariel Nepomuceno, and private sector representatives from the ARISE Philippines comprise the rest of the Philippine delegation to New York.

They were joined at this UN-DRR meeting by New York-based Ambassador Leila Lora-Santos and our country’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Antonio Lagdameo.

According to the same DENR press release “the Loyzaga-led delegation” presented the Philippine papers that reaffirmed the government’s commitments to building resilience, especially among the most vulnerable sectors in the country. “The delegation stated how the climate crisis and the pandemic amplified pre-existing social vulnerabilities and overshadowed the country’s achievements in significantly reducing disaster-related mortalities, the number of affected populations, and direct economic losses to GDP (gross domestic product) prior to 2020. It further pointed out that majority of all loss and damage between 2010 and 2020 were due to tropical cyclones alone, until COVID-19 came and reversed years of social progress and drove more than three million Filipinos back into poverty.”

Yes, we get it. Other than the hifalutin words contained in the Philippine statement, we totally understand the message that our government would like to tell the world. From pre-emptive evacuation of people to safer shelters and higher grounds, to the pre-positioning of rescue personnel, equipment and relief goods, these are the “best practices” and the “to do” activities on DRR and climate change adaptation measures.

But do we need a Philippine delegation just to present and read the country’s position paper to that event at the UNGA? Isn’t it precisely we have our Permanent Representative to the UNGA who can capably do this simple task? Loyzaga flew there just two weeks after she was also part of PBBM delegation in Washington D.C. She reportedly joined in private and official meetings that – I supposed – required inputs from the DENR Secretary.

To obviously justify this junket, the DENR press release stated in the end: “The New York meeting is seen as a fitting prelude to the Philippine hosting of the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in October 2024.”

Loyzaga is reportedly equally if not out-travelled PBBM in foreign trips in one year so far of this administration. It is not unusual if the DFA Secretary, or the Tourism Secretary, or even the Finance Secretary to frequently embark on job-related travels abroad.

But for the DENR Secretary to go on climate change trips abroad, go figure.