Toward a safer and gentler world (Last of 2 Parts)

(Keynote Address to the Sustainable Development Network Annual Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, The World Bank, Washington DC, February 1, 2011.)

I rose to my current role in the country’s national leadership on the wings of my performance as a local government executive.

In my new role, I will do no less than what I did in Makati, but in the larger, national scale.

This is why — if you will allow a short personal vignette — on the day of my oath-taking as vice president, I did not ride the standard limousine secured by a battery of bodyguards. I rode one of the locally-made electric jeepneys plying the streets of Makati.

An environmental activist drove and two boy scouts, two senior citizens, two students and two professionals — none of them armed — acted as my security escorts.

Disaster risk reduction and management has become a major focus for the Philippine government with the enactment of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) act in 2010. The law replaced the previous system that puts emphasis on emergency relief and response. The law enhances the mandates of national and local institutions dealing with disaster and encourages pre-disaster actions.

The Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act reformed national and local calamity financing by permitting funding support not just for ex-post responses such as relief and recovery, but also for ex-ante related disaster risk reduction actions such as preparedness, prevention and risk mitigation.

In addition to the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Law, the Philippine government has also adopted the strategic national action plan for disaster risk reduction, which lays down our priorities to comply with the Hyogo framework of action over the next decade.

Both the law and the action plan benefited from extensive consultations with partners, stakeholders, and development partners.

It is also important to note that a climate change act has been put in place, complementing our disaster risk reduction policy framework. Both disaster risk reduction and management and climate change laws call for the harmonization of our national and local policies, priorities, and programs on disaster and climate risk reduction.

The biggest challenge moving forward is to how implement these laws, particularly at the local level. While national agencies are mandated to mainstream risk reduction actions in their specific sectors, local governments are mandated to assume all these functions at the provincial, city or municipal levels.

In this effort, the international community, especially the World Bank, has a big role to play in making sure that development interventions of today do not cause disasters in the future. Greater collaboration is needed, particularly in retrofitting infrastructure, capacity-building, strengthening institutions, establishing early warning systems, improving natural resource management practices, updating building codes, and urban planning.

It is vital that infrastructure investments are able to withstand surprises and long-term risks, given the long-term challenges.

With respect to long-term risks, I sincerely believe opportunities to collaborate include investments in long-term systems for information collection, the development of means for public engagement and mechanisms.

That can continuously update plans based on changes on the ground, and the deployment of decision-making tools to help analyze the implications of long-term risks.

The Philippines has been privileged to count on the World Bank as an enduring partner in its development journey. In particular, the global facility for disaster risk reduction and recovery has been very aggressive in helping us establish a robust disaster risk reduction program. As the head of the country’s housing and urban development agencies, I am particularly interested in promoting safe land use and human settlements. I hope I can continue to count on our partnership on these two areas and more, as we try to create a safer and gentler world.

Thank you very much and good morning.