Skip to main content

Barangay-based resiliency index

A battery of scientific researches concluded that climate change impacts, natural disruption for that matter, are increasing in frequency and scale.

The social, environmental, economic and political consequences of improbable but high impact events to communities—the barangay in particular—are amplified by lack of funding, skills, capacity, technology, crisis management plan and network to mitigate, adapt, respond and bounce back from a piercing climate-propelled disaster.
 
The lack of concern for safety, current culture and perception of risk, the perceived lack of discipline and sincerity in disaster and emergency management drills magnifies potential vulnerabilities in the barangay. These gaps only elevate the impacts of “plain as the nose on your face” types of disasters such as earthquake, monsoonal flooding, droughts, vector-borne diseases, etc.

Mapping the bigger picture, the number of casualties, the amount of damage and people affected have been piling up decade by decade. An analysis suggests that natural disasters have cost the country around US$1.9 billion or PHP90 billion in economic damages in 2015 and that 3.83 million people were affected by natural hazards.  The direct cost from natural disasters experts’ notes threatens socio-economic growth at the macro and micro levels.

As to impacts to food and the agricultural sector, agricultural scientists predicts that total crop production will be 4% lower by 2050 and that food prices may increase by 20-30%. The International Food Policy Institute concluded that climate change impacts to the agricultural sector alone may cost the Philippine economy PHP26 billion per year through 2050.

Now what should the provincial government do to anticipate, prepare better and mitigate the impacts of abnormal weather patterns to social, economic and political life? We’ve seen the impacts of severe droughts and hunger in Kidapawan that led to riots resulting to the death of some protesting farmers and families? In what ways can the provincial, city and municipal governments of Ilocos Norte mitigate the risks and impacts of a ridiculous Padsan River do a Cagayan De Oro-like flooding? Or as my former students of political science and public administration in their futures studies course at Northwestern University, anticipated a tsunami-like event in Laoag in the year 2030? Or in a black elephant scenario (potentially obvious but frequently ignored) a pandemic disaster? and so forth and so on.

Ilocos Norte like some provinces in the North are exposed to emerging and black swan climate-induced disasters. While in paper Laoag is the least vulnerable city on climate change impacts, extreme climate disasters can just hit you right in the face. Disasters by the word of it are sudden event or natural catastrophes that causes great damage to life and property and yes liberty too.

Local governments must explore, innovate and institutionalize what works and adopt perhaps effective and well-tested indicators like barangay-based disaster resiliency index, plans and approaches to crisis and disaster recovery management. LGUs should invest on people and technology to ensure that we have the rights skills and means to respond from unusual disasters. Crisis and disaster management is a moral and political imperative and the barangay in actual disaster scenario are the first responders and the operations arm of municipal, city and provincial disaster management councils. Thus we need to engage them actively and deeply and gear them with the appropriate and updated knowledge and tools to respond and cope up with disasters quickly. A barangay disaster-based resiliency index is one amongst many approaches that might work to contextualize a micro-geographic approach to risk analysis and assessment.


(Shermon Cruz works as a Climate Reality Leader at Climate Reality Project Philippines, a business continuity management planner and a professional futurist at the Center for Engaged Foresight (CEF), a futures and strategic foresight innovation hub in the Philippines and the Asia Pacific. For more about his works and engagements, check www.engagedforesight.com or you may email him at engageforesight@gmail.com.)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Empanada festival: A celebration of good taste and good life

By Dominic B. dela Cruz & Leilanie G. Adriano Staff reporters BATAC CITY—If there is one thing Batac is truly proud of, it would be its famous empanada-making business that has nurtured its people over the years. Embracing a century-old culture and culinary tradition, Batac’s empanada claims to be the best and tastiest in the country with its distinctive Ilokano taste courtesy of its local ingredients: fresh grated papaya, mongo, chopped longganisa, and egg. The crispy orange wrapper and is made of rice flour that is deep-fried. The celebration of this city’s famous traditional fast food attracting locals and tourists elsewhere comes with the City Charter Day of Batac every 23 rd  of June. Every year, the City Government of Batac led by Mayor Jeffrey Jubal Nalupta commemorate the city’s charter day celebration to further promote its famous One-Town, One Product, the Batac empanada. Empanada City The Batac empanada festival has already become an annua

PIDS expert says income tax cuts justified; warns gov’t of revenue loss

Proposals to amend the personal income tax schedule appear to be well-justified. However, these proposals should include measures that will allow government to recover the revenue loss from lower income taxes. Dr. Rosario Manasan, senior research fellow of state think-tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), said at a seminar sponsored by the Philippine Senate, that government should look for new revenue measures to compensate for the projected revenue loss that will arise as a result of the implementation of any of the various proposals to restructure the personal income tax. Currently, there are several income tax reform proposals pending in both houses of Congress. All of them, according to Dr. Manasan, have the same objective of addressing the phenomenon of bracket creep, which results from “non-indexation to inflation of personal income tax brackets”. Simply put, bracket creep occurs when employees’ income increases over time as a result of inflation. Th

PGIN honors Ilocano heroes of past, present through Heroes Walk

SPO1 Allan Lampitoc Franco of Banna, Ilocos Norte and PO2 Jovalyn D. Lozano of Adams, Ilocos Norte receive a resolution of commendation, a certificate of college scholarship grant to their family members and a P20,000 cash incentive each from the Provincial Government of Ilocos Norte represented by Governor Imee R. Marcos and Vice Governor Angelo M. Barba in recognition of their bravery and heroic acts in the Mamasapano clash in Maguindanao on January 25. Mr. Franco and Mr. Lozano were recognized on March 10 in time for the unveiling of the second batch of Ilocano heroes at the Heroes Walk located along the Sirib Mile in Laoag City.  (Lei Adriano) By Jennifer T. Pambid PGIN-CMO In honor of the heroes who brought freedom, fame and glory to the province as well as to the country in the past century, the Provincial Government of Ilocos Norte (PGIN) through the Education Department and Sirib Youth Office launched the second batch of Ilocano Heroes Walk on March 10, 2015.