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~ “We cannot stop natural disasters but we can arm ourselves with knowledge: so many lives wouldn’t have to be lost if there was enough disaster preparedness.”
~ Petra Nemcova, Happy Hearts Fund, 2005.
~ “We make guilty of our own disasters the sun, the moon and the stars as if we were villains by necessity, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence.”
~ Shakespeare, 1605.
~ “From 1992 to 2001, 5.8 million Filipinos were killed or injured as a result of natural disasters, war, and other calamities. The Philippines ranks fourth in the global climate risk index, which identifies countries affected by extreme weather events.”
~ Asian Development Bank 2009.
~ “The poor have least capacity to manage physical and financial risk and to make long-term adaptive decisions. Their lives are affected more by climate.”
~ World Development Report, 2010.
~ “We recommend a review of building codes in the Philippines as well as enhancing the capacity of engineers and the private sector to improve the resiliency of public infrastructure to natural disasters,” ~ Tatsuo Narafu, JICA, October 2013.
~ “A sustainable livelihood is key to effective disaster preparedness.”
~ Asian Disaster Reduction Center, 2012.
As I watched like you, over the past five days, appalled and terribly saddened by the horrific sights of damage and destruction from Typhoon Yolanda, I wondered more and more what could have been done, if anything, to reduce its awful impact. To bring relief assistance quicker. To prepare for such a disaster better, in advance. There are increasing signs of desperation and despair, of survivors feeling abandoned without help, cast adrift, by the authorities, and the outside world. This despite all the generous outpouring of efforts mounted so hurriedly to send support from within the Philippines and from around the world. But also there are claims the Philippine Government has been too slow and bureaucratic in its response. There are, after all, many outlying areas as yet unreached to assess damage and assistance needs. Much devastated infrastructure – roads, airports, etc. – have made getting around a supreme challenge. Meanwhile, scarcity of food in face of rapidly increasing numbers of starving people, especially children, has led basic staple prices to spike already.
Of course, this was probably the worst single natural weather disaster to hit anywhere in the world in the past fifty years, and maybe in all time. But climate change is bringing with it rapidly increasing challenges from more frequent and deadly natural disasters and extreme weather events. And sadly the Philippines – as a very poor country – has the dubious and troubling distinction of being one of the most vulnerable in the world to these, because of its geography at the end of the Eastern Pacific’s deadly typhoon alley. Add to this, Tacloban City in Leyte and the Eastern Visayas are among the poorest regions of the Philippines. How did this affect the severity of Yolanda’s impact and the level of loss of life, destruction, chaos and slow relief?
Key Questions: How has the relief effort been handled so far in Tacloban and Eastern Visayas? Why has it seemingly taken so long for assistance to arrive to survivors? How does poverty affect disaster resiliency and preparedness? How should relief and recovery efforts be managed to be most helpful? And what needs to be done considerably to improve Philippines’ capacity to handle the very likely increasing number of such natural disasters in future?
The Challenge of immediate Relief: Immediate needs are for food, clean water, shelter and medical supplies on a massive scale. All four now seem to be largely lacking in Tacloban City – which is a shattered ghost town full of largely mangled collapsed buildings – but also across a huge swath of the Eastern and Central Visayas, particularly the former which took the brunt of Yolanda’s ferocity. There are long lines of patient folks stretching seemingly for miles waiting for food, or with billycans to get a small allotment of clean water from the few available pumps and filtration centers. Meanwhile many are sleeping outside in the shadow of their destroyed homes, alongside still uncollected corpses of strangers and loved ones. Sadly, looting and breakdown of law and order in some areas – notably Tacloban – have hampered relief efforts. Altogether some nine million people are affected – ten per cent of all Filipinos. Four and a half million in the Eastern Visayas alone. Over 2,500 have died, but the death toll could rise much higher. Many thousands more are injured. And medical facilities and supplies are all but non-existent. Small make-shift clinics are being set up – including at Tacloban Airport.
In face of such calamity and despair, we have all seen the graphic photos of forlorn locals daubing signs in large letters pleading for outside help – especially for food. Transport bottlenecks are holding aid supplies tantalizingly short distances away – in Cebu. Yet important resources still exist within the region. Notably rice. After all, Leyte and E. Visayas are one of the largest regional producers in the country and sizable stocks are held. Also, while many more affluent locals seek desperately to flee, they often have skills and knowledge that could vitally help relief and recovery. There seems a lack of strong central leadership in local and national government to implement Pres. Aquino’s calamity declaration. So as rice prices spike, surely more locally stored rice in surviving warehouses should be tapped quickly at reasonable prices to feed starving people? Transport logistics – including shortage of trucks – and infrastructure are massive bottlenecks. As is the mobile phone and telecoms network which is largely down. Only a few better constructed modern buildings survived relatively intact. The vast majority of flimsy poorly constructed ones and homes of the poor have largely been totally destroyed.
Management of Relief and Recovery: Clearly, the relief effort needs to focus on the immediate priorities, leveraging outside assistance to the maximum as quickly as possible. ~ But use of local resources and capabilities also needs to be maximized – including employing locals in relief and recovery. Not just bringing in all from outside. Locals can wield chainsaws too! This is key not to weaken local capacity and raise dependency on the outside on a continuing basis. ~ So, knowledgeable local professionals and skilled workers need to be encouraged to stay and help – doctors, engineers, teachers, builders… We’ve all see the chaotic airport scenes as the more affluent rush to leave! But if local skilled folks stay, recovery will be quicker. ~ The poor’s needs also must be addressed as a priority and not neglected. E. Visayas has a large subsistence agriculture society many outside the money economy. Without affordable in-kind assistance quickly, starvation and illness can set in leading to longer term instability and reduced productivity and incomes. ~ Market chaos is a major potential risk – as basic staples’ prices (notably rice) spike as stocks are held off the market. The National Food Authority (NFA) holds large reserve stocks of rice in Leyte – enough for many weeks as of September 2013. These should be released quickly and orderly with active police and military support. ~ Selectively fixing key infrastructure first will be vital – airports, roads, bridges, mobile phone networks. ~ There’s a need to balance law-and-order concerns with humanitarian problems of hunger. The local authorities should work with the private sector and aid agencies to coordinate actively distribution of food and necessities, especially to the poor. ~ Then, it would help to get plans in place for planting next season’s crops – especially rice, and for starting school classes as soon as possible – to inspire confidence in a gradual return to normality.
Poverty and Vulnerability: As noted (above) in the 2010 World Development Report of the World Bank, there is a strong link between poverty and people’s vulnerability to natural disaster. In this, the Philippines generally and Eastern Visayas in particular are no exceptions. This surely must also have made the impact of Yolanda more severe and preparedness much weaker?
According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Philippines has suffered from greater poverty and income inequality than other ASEAN-6 South-East Asian countries since 2000. Eastern Visayas has also experienced deepening income inequality and poverty – rising to over 40% of its population by 2006. The region has greatly expanded rice output especially through irrigation in recent years. But rising rice prices have affected local people.
Poverty and vulnerability in the Eastern Visayas – as in the Philippines generally but more so – are reflected in a number of ways : ~ Weak infrastructure, notably power, telecoms and roads; ~ Weak and declining education performance – in Eastern Visayas elementary, secondary and college level performances have fallen, and drop-out rates risen compared to other regions. ~ Eastern Visayas is a predominantly agricultural region – a major rice and copra producer – but with a large subsistence farming community – one-third of its population . They have high income insecurity and low investment, exacerbated by lack of access to credit and exploitation by traders and middlemen. ~ Weak local government capacity – with lack of transparency and effectiveness due to political dynasties limiting competition and responsiveness. ~ A quite inadequate out-of-date building code – both nationally and locally – with no provision for strengthening structures against extreme weather and other natural disasters. ~ Disaster preparedness systems greatly reduced by poverty and lack of capacity, and weak and unrepresentative local governments.
Reducing Poverty and Raising Preparedness: Eastern Visayas – and Philippines generally – need to use this terrible tragedy as a motivation to spur much stronger efforts than in past to address these constraints : Improved infrastructure, education and farm investment and productivity; a better building code and local government capacity; and more open politics could, together, serve to lift many out of poverty. Alongside this far stronger advanced preparedness plans are needed to mitigate the effects of future major weather disasters which sadly are sooner or later virtually bound to strike again. This needs to build mitigation of extreme weather event risk into all aspects of the Philippine economy, policy-making and institutions. This cannot be solely or principally a military-led effort, after the fact, once disaster strikes. It ultimately needs to be civilian led based upon deep stakeholder involvement and local civilian ownership.
Conclusions: Clearly, the overwhelming need right now is for determined and focused leadership by local, regional and national officials to spearhead disaster relief efforts. They must not let the magnitude of Yolanda’s devastation overwhelm them. There are bound to be mistakes and inefficiencies. But the broad thrust must be clear and dovetailed into plans for medium-term recovery and long-term faster growth and poverty reduction through more open and effective government administration. Efforts at more inclusive government and society will be key. Foreign governments and aid agencies and NGOs need to work closely with the national authorities in a coordinated way to help support a strong overall Filipino effort rather than simply their own in isolation.
The challenges right now seem massive – enough to give us all pause – but I, for one, believe if we pull together, and if President Aquino and his administration show us a strong lead, we can pull it off. Let us all hope so, for the sake of our poor and today much pressed fellowmen and friends in the Visayas!