The National Disaster Consciousness Month is observed every July by virtue of Executive Order No. 137 signed on Aug. 10, 1999 by then President Joseph Estrada. In 1988, the first week of July was declared National Disaster Consciousness Week but the observance of the occasion was extended to a month to include human-induced disasters and other emergencies.
Natural calamities like typhoon, earthquake, flood, landslide, and storm surge are a fact of life in the Philippines considering our country’s geographical location. We rank first in the World Risk Index among 193 countries because of the exposure and vulnerability to risks. But what should not be a way of life is how the government responds with temporary measures every time a calamity happens and how locals are expected to survive on the much-proclaimed resilience of the Filipino.
This has become a habitual practice whenever a calamity happens: affected families are evacuated and crowded in classrooms or covered courts, relief goods such as rice, noodles, and sardines are distributed, and damaged houses are reconstructed with the same flimsy materials that have been destroyed. Then the vicious cycle is repeated when another calamity strikes. And each time, the poor bears the brunt as they are the ones forced to live in areas severely affected when typhoons, flood or storm surge hit.
Why do they risk their lives by staying in disaster-prone areas? One of the reasons often cited is livelihood, but most often than not they do not have a choice: relocating will cost them money that they do not have. But some local governments allow them to build houses in coastal areas considered as high risks in the first place is part of the chronic problem.
New technologies nowadays enable various national government agencies like DOST or Phivolcs, even UP to develop tools to help identify high risk areas. It aims to help the public know potential hazards and safe locations in their city or municipality, as well as for practitioners and lawmakers to incorporate the data in their disaster risk-related planning and policymaking.
Mapping the disaster-prone areas within a barangay is only an initial step.
Cities, municipalities and barangays must disseminate important information to their constituents through meetings and briefings to warn residents and give them a clear understanding of the risks of natural disasters. More importantly, local disaster risk reduction and management councils and offices, tasked to ensure that the most vulnerable sectors are involved in hazard planning, should ensure that no structures are built in high risk areas as it would endanger the lives of the people.
The Philippines has enough laws to respond to calamities. We have RA 10121 strengthening the country risk reduction and management system, and mandating that each LGU should have its local disaster risk reduction and management offices. What the government needs is to improve its disaster mitigation measures, at least to lessen the impact of natural calamities. This could be through relocating communities in high risk areas to safer location through government housing project like the government’s flagship Pambansang Pabahay or banning development that would cause the destruction of natural covers like mountains and mangroves.