Philippines: How prepared are we really for disasters?

Investments poured into local disaster preparedness continuously miss during disasters themselves, casting doubt on the country’s readiness for them.

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On paper, the Philippines should have less of a problem dealing with natural hazards. The Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 provides a cornerstone to build up disaster preparedness, and under it, government agencies regularly develop multi-year disaster risk and management plans, sectoral plans, and climate change adaptation plans.

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However, the Commission on Audit’s 2022 review of DRRM funds reveals a gulf between forward-thinking solutions and local implementation: only around 56 percent of local government units (LGU) were able to conduct risk assessments that included vulnerable sectors, 33 percent have digitized local risk maps, and 13 percent have a complete inventory of vital resources for emergencies. In terms of planning, only half of the LGUs had complete contingencies for top hazards, and a third of them had no contingency plans at all. Over a third did not have training for personnel and only less than a third had protocols responsive to marginalized populations.

These predicaments can be traced to where over half of LGUs had trouble integrating risk reduction and adaptation into their local development plans, and two-thirds have difficulty programming and budgeting DRRM funds. According to a 2021 report by the Pacific Disaster Center, the lack of technical training and skilled personnel have long hampered these kinds of processes.

This shortage in capacity means that local officials could completely miss out on marking flood-prone or landslide-prone areas, resulting in avoidable suffering. Vulnerable groups could be left to fend for themselves because of plans that failed to take them into account, and destroyed infrastructure leaves communities without even basic essentials.

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