FOR MARCH 14-18, 2022

GUIDE QUESTIONS:

1. What is the importance of disaster risk reduction and management plan?

2. Why is it essential for a running president of our country?

In the eye of danger

 Philippine Daily Inquirer

 6 Feb 2022

There’s a question that has been rarely posed to candidates running for president but is equally
important: What is their disaster risk reduction and management plan? Examining a presidential
aspirant’s disaster-related program is necessary because the Philippines sits along the Pacific’s
typhoon belt and the “Ring of Fire,” making it vulnerable to natural disasters: an average of 20
typhoons hit every year and there are 53 active volcanoes scattered across the archipelago
including Mount Pinatubo that’s considered among the world’s most dangerous.

The recent volcanic eruption in Tonga, an archipelago like the Philippines, has shown that
disaster preparedness saves lives, and should be a salient feature in the platform of anyone
applying for the highest position of the land.

The world’s strongest storm in 2021, Supertyphoon “Odette,” hit the country last December,
killing at least 400 people and damaging more than P23 billion worth of infrastructure and
agriculture. In 2020, Taal Volcano, one of the country’s most active volcanoes, erupted after 42
years, sending an ash column as high as one kilometer and placing the surrounding area under
alert level 3.

Last month, the volcano recorded phreatomagmatic eruptions that were considered “very weak”
with the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) assuring nearby
communities that any future eruptions will not be as severe as the one in 2020 even as the area
continues to remain under alert level 2.

Tsunamis are just as rare in the Philippines but they could be devastating—an earthquake along
the Cotabato trench generated a tsunami whose waves went as high as nine meters in August
1976, killing 8,000 people. In more recent memory, there was the storm surge brought by
Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in November 2013. More than the rain, it was the surge that damaged
90 percent of structures in Tacloban City and caused about half of the 6,000 deaths because
residents, despite evacuation orders, did not understand the danger.

Thus, there is much to learn from Tonga which provides regular tsunami drills so that Tongans
knew what to do when disaster struck last month. The Polynesian kingdom of more than 170
islands has been described as a flat land with no tall structures or mountains to slow down or
block the oncoming waves so people, particularly those on the main island Tongatapu that bore
the brunt of the calamity, had to run inland to save themselves. Yet despite reporting that 84
percent of its population was affected by the disaster, deaths were kept down to five.

Given this and the risks that the country’s geographic conditions pose, disaster risk reduction and
management should be an important element in the ongoing scrutiny of candidates applying to be
president. How do they plan to improve the country’s disaster response and reduce the impact of
natural calamities, especially for Filipinos who find themselves in the eye of danger?