Build back better

We need a Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR). Hear us out again, or let honest public discourse on it reignite. As early as March 2018, Sen. Grace Poe filed Senate Bill No. 1735 reorganizing our disaster risk reduction (DRR) paradigm and proposing a Department of Disaster Resilience and Emergency Management. The escalation of climate change catastrophes and its consequences – including torrential tropical cyclones, unforgiving droughts, fiendish forest fires and inundating sea level rise with its persistent, pervasive and pernicious effects on our food security, biodiversity, infrastructure, logistics and national priorities – requires an evolution in our institutional interventions for DRR. We have reached a flashpoint in DRR that needs a framework with DDR. Just as we heeded the call for institutional action after Tropical Storm Ondoy in 2009 (internationally, Typhoon Ketsana) that gave birth to the law on the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), we ought to listen now to the needs of Filipinos.

Our relief efforts need to transcend the concentration of efforts on short-term assistance that only keep our kababayans afloat until the next storm. Of course, it is also needed and helpful, but we can’t just give relief packs, only to leave families to later be victimized by unconscionable utang vis-à-vis vicious loan sharks since there’s no easy microfinancing. We can’t leave our kababayans crippled by unemployment or small businesses lost due to natural calamities. We need to care and devote our action more to post-disaster recovery, reconstruction and disaster prevention.

Our national thrust on DRR must be faithful to the aim and tradition of protecting all Filipinos’ rights to their lives, livelihoods and properties. We can do it. In fact, we are already doing it in several aspects of DRR. The Philippines received high praises for our “people-centered” approach to disaster risk reduction last month at the October 2024 Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction chief Kamal Kishore observed that the Philippines was “way ahead” in programs, projects and practices in DRR, and hoped that “[t]he work that is being done in Philippines can be a lighthouse to the rest of the region, and indeed the world.”

STS Kristine harshly reminded us of the magnitude, novelty and severity of the new catastrophes and challenges of human-induced climate change. STS Kristine dumped two month’s worth of rain in less than two days in certain localities; inundated low-lying areas; stranded families on the roofs of their homes in the dead of the night; suspended regular government services, school classes and commercial activity for at least three days across the archipelago and caused close to 200 fatalities. Government, private organizations and brave volunteers that quickly mobilized to help couldn’t even immediately do so, because our limited roads and infrastructure were impassable for a long time after STS Kristine. Overall economic damage, from agriculture in terms of harvests to education in terms of school facilities, is currently conservatively estimated at a whopping P10 billion. Considering the inopportune timing coinciding with harvest season, our rice sector is ravaged at the cost of P5 billion covering more than 100,000 hectares. Latest food inflation data indicate a sharp increase, and confirmed that a massive blow has again been dealt to our farmers and entrepreneurs.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. relatedly reported to the nation that our quick response funds have been exhausted, but the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) already has its marching orders to replenish it. With DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman’s energy and efficiency, we are certain that funding objectives can be accomplished, but much more must be done by way of lasting reforms. Just as the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) included a Department of Water Resources in the legislative agenda (Senator Poe proposed “National Water Resource Management Act” or Senate Bill No. 102 filed last 07 July 2022), we look forward to the prioritization of the DDR as a part of the President’s legislative agenda.

DDR would augment and align with further initiatives in our bid to maintain our world-recognized leadership in disaster resilience, response and adaptation.

We should laud the recent passage of Republic Act No. 12019 or “The Loss and Damage Fund Board Act” which institutionalizes the Philippines’ leadership position as the world’s host country of the United Nations’ Loss and Damage Fund. It could not come early enough with updated data on just how devastating climate change would be in the next few decades without serious, sustained and systemic action. We have always been grateful for and benefited from the assistance of our allies. International bilateral and multilateral cooperation, which we should work to remain strong under president-elect Donald Trump, will be indispensable moving forward.

In its 2024 Asia-Pacific Climate Report, the Asian Development Bank projects a high-end greenhouse gas emissions scenario of gross domestic product reduction in the Philippines by 18 percent in 2070 and up to 41 percent in 2100, predominantly by sea level rise.

A Department of Disaster Resilience is an indispensable component in future-proofing our country’s institutional architecture for protecting Filipino lives, livelihoods and properties. DDR adds to our arsenal in keeping us on the path of prosperity, away from human suffering and poverty. DDR will give us a fighting chance not only in surviving climate change, but in thriving, leading and pioneering in disaster resilience, of being able to finally build back better.