Confronting Disasters: Paradigm Shifts

Confronting Disasters: Paradigm Shifts

byUndersecretary ALEXANDER P. PAMA

Administrator, Office of Civil Defense and

Executive Director, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council

The Thirteenth Jaime V. Ongpin Annual Memorial Lecture

on Public Service in Business and Government

Ateneo de Manila University

05 November 2014

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GREETINGS…

Introduction

I am greatly honored to be invited to speak before you today. I remember shortly before my appointment as OCD Administrator last May of this year, Mr. Tony La Viña, Dean of the Ateneo School of Government and Oxfam's Jed Alegado wrote in an article in Rappler entitled “After Yolanda: The Straight Path to Recovery,”and if I may quote,”The design of the NDRRMC, which is a coordination body with very little power and budget, destines it to be a failure. Even a great leader like Admiral Pama will face insurmountable obstacles for the achievement of its mission.”[1]You see, for the first part of the statement, I would partly agree, but the “great leader” part I think is highly debatable.

But on a serious note now, inspite of these insightful comments which I took both as a forewarning and a challenge, I had to, as we say in the Navy, go full steam ahead and take on the job.Now, after six months and 9 storms and typhoons under my watch, I nowvery well understand what they meant and that these challenges are far greater than I thought.The challenges indeed calls forsolutions thateven go beyond thecurrent capacity and capability of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) as the primary institution which serves as the Executive arm and Secretariat of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC). In fact, it even goes beyond all that the government can provide.

The reality is that it is a challenge that all of us should jointly confront and provide solutions. I believe that the sine qua non to succeed in confronting disasters and to be a safe and resilient society proceeds from our individual and collective philosophy. Philosophy is so important that it drives our actions. And actions demonstrated repeatedly through time become part of culture.This being said puts emphasis that disaster risk reduction and management is a “whole of society” approach and responsibility requiring a change in our understanding of disaster. Then such philosophy translates into doctrines and eventually becomes our way of life. The good news is that today, even with perceived gaps and shortcomings in our laws and disaster risk reduction management (DRRM) system, the paradigm in dealing with these challenges has shifted, coupled with the mutual help and support of the public, I am confident that we will succeed.

Today, I will not talk about the operational details on how to prepare for, respond to or manage the after effects of disasters. I am taking this opportunity to bring the discussion to a broader context, noting that the participants of this gathering represent a wealth of expertise and a body of valuable knowledge.

But what exactly are disasters? I’m sure, if I ask one of you here, you will come up with several answers even with your eyes closed. By law, a disaster is defined as a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or a society involving widespread human, material, economic or environmental losses and impacts, which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources.

In today’s discussions, let us contextualize disasters with the foregoing definitionin mind and as a consequence of the occurrence of a natural hazard or human induced phenomenon and how we prepare for and handle it.These hazards can be broadly classified as hydro-meteorological or weather/climate related, geological, human-induced and pandemics. Examples of human induced hazards are insurgencies and conflicts, as demonstrated by last year’s Zamboanga siege, oil and chemical spills. And for natural hazards, there are of course, typhoons, earthquakes, landslides, to name a few. But hazards only become disasters when people are not prepared for its impacts and effects.

The Philippines is naturally exposed to a number of hazards which have led toseveral disasters because of our geographical condition. We are located in the typhoon belt and in the Ring of Fire, and have 23 active volcanoes.The country is transected by a number of fault zones including the 1,250-kilometer Philippine Fault Zone stretching from Northwest Luzon to South Eastern Mindanao[2]and relatedly, its archipelagic features exposes significant areas of the country to tsunamis.

Asignificantbut non-institutional factor however that contributes to our vulnerability to disasters is the evident mindset and culture of most Filipinosin dealing with disasters. As the saying goes, “Angpinoyhindigagalaw ‘yanhangga’thindinapuputukanna.”Sadly, most of us still have the “Bahalana” attitude.

Lastly, the institutional state of DRRM in the country leaves more to be desired, while the law, framework and plans are in place, its implementation remains a challenge both at the national and local levels.

Historical perspective

Historically, in a year, we are visited by an average of 20 typhoons. From 1970 to 2013, there have been 856 tropical cyclones recorded that entered the Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR).Three hundred twenty-two of which or around 37% are considered destructive.

In the past 20 years, tropical cyclones have claimed 17,119 lives,injured 51,068 individuals, and have caused 5,198 persons to go missing. It had affected at least 24.8 million families and caused damages to agriculture, infrastructure and private properties worth Php 354.7 billion.

But more recently, we have noticed that the impact of disasters have been more devastating. Three days from now, we will be marking the first year anniversary of the landfall of one of the strongest typhoons ever recorded in history that hit the country, super Typhoon Yolanda (“Haiyan”), which caused heavy losses in terms of human lives, severe suffering, and massive destruction of properties. That experience gave us a lot of painful experiences and valuablelessons,to say the least, in theimplementation of our Disaster Risk reduction and Management system.

The Paradigm Shift: From Reactive to Proactive

In 1970 until 2010, disaster management focused only around the hazard and the impacts of a disaster. It assumed that disasters cannot be avoided. Most of the pre-disaster plans if any, had beenon the provision of relief goods and in terms of physical preparations, infrastructures like dikes and flood control systems were constructed among others. To be fair, there had been pre-disaster plans and preparations, although they were obviously disparate and lackingandevidently there was no national comprehensive plan and programs.The government’s response to disaster was concentrated on provision of relief and to an extent, rehabilitation where both the national and local governments were reactive to disasters.

Consequently, the greater challenges brought by the effects of climate change and the increasing magnitude of the various impacts of hazardsleading to disasters heightened the need for a paradigm shift in dealing with disasters. These effectswerefelt not only here in the Philippines but globally as well.Thus in 2005, the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) was adoptedby the international communitywith the end in view of reducing vulnerabilities of the global population to natural hazards.The Philippines became a signatory to the HFAand accordingly, translated said HFA into action primarily to have a more comprehensive system and proactive strategy on disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM).

In line with these, legislative bills on DRRM were proposed both in the Senate and in the House of Representativesled by the two Biazons; Sen Rodolfo and Congressman Ruffy.Maybe by coincidence or even a not so gentle prodding from nature,the Billwas on its second reading in the Senate when Typhoon Ondoy struck in September2009 which flooded and severely affectedmost parts of Metro Manila and the neighboring provinces in CALABARZON. This was a turning point in the consciousness and realization by our government and people on the need for a new paradigm in preparing for and confronting the so called “new normal.” Thisaccelerated the passage in May 27, 2010, of Republic Act 10121known as the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 (DRRM Act).

Republic Act 10121 transformed the Philippine disaster management system from disaster relief and response towards Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM).This transformation demanded enhancements in institutional mechanisms and in the competencies of people.The law expanded the membership of the National Disaster Coordinating Council or NDCC and renamed it to National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) or a National Council which serves as the highest policy-making platform for DRRM in the country. The council now has 44 members both from Government agencies and representatives from the Civil Society, Academe and other stakeholders with the Secretary of National Defense as the Council Chairman.The inclusion of four (4) representatives from the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and one (1) representative from the private sector in the National Council strengthened the reachof DRRM to communities as well as the private and business sectors.

The NDRRM Framework

To complement the law, a national DRRM Framework was formulated with the end goal of “Safer adaptive and resilient Filipino Communities towards sustainable development.”The frameworkguides the country’s efforts as itestablishes four (4) thematic areas, each headed by a Council Vice-Chair, namely, (1) Prevention and Mitigation led by the Secretary of the DOST, (2) Preparedness led by the Secretary of the DILG,
(3) Response led by the Secretary of the DSWD,and (4) Rehabilitation and Recovery, led by the Director General of NEDA which are crucial to building national resilience.

NDRRM Plan

To achieve the desired goal of the NDRRM Framework,the National DRRM Plan for 2011-2028 was formulated and approved.The plan outlines programs, projects and activities covering the 4 thematic areasaimed at strengthening the capacity of both national government and local government unitstogether with stakeholders to build disaster-resilient communities and to institutionalize arrangements and measures for reducing disaster risks.

When you see our logo now, we added the word “Proactive” as a constant reminder to everyone that we are practicing this new DRRM mindset and implementing the new DRRM framework and plan. We are slowly instilling in the minds of the people that it is best to prepare than to react every time there is a disaster. Subliminally, this has become the mantra that we inculcate to decision makers, stakeholders and communities.

The New Paradigm

The enactment of the law paved the way for further developments characterized by the proactive stance of local and national government units.

Now, allow me to highlight some of thesignificant concepts and practices we now implement to pursue the implementation of the new paradigm in the ambit of the 4 thematic areas which I have mentioned earlier:

Thematic Area 1refersto Prevention and Mitigation. It focuses on interventions aimed at identifying hazards, vulnerabilities and exposure and undertaking measures meantto reduce the impact of disasters.The government has heavily invested in this particularly in weather forecasting by capacitating PAGASA and complemented by putting up Project NOAH. Science-based tools for early warning and risk assessment were developed, which include the acquisition of high-resolution datasets using LiDAR and IFSAR technologiesof the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, respectively. These are likewise augmented by the outputs from our foreign assistedtechnical and capacity enhancementprojects with our partnerships with JICA and the Australian government. In these projects, we produceddatasetsthat are used for small and large scale hazard mapping and subsequent risk assessments as basis for land use, development and response planning as well as for accurate weather and climate forecasting and early warning. I guess you will agree with me when I say that in our experiences with, to a significant extent, we have seen and observed themarked improvement in our weather forecastingand consequent preparedness actions and response.

Thematic Area 2, Disaster Preparedness, focuses on capacity building to enhance the state of readiness to respond to or recover from disasters. As mandated, we have been conducting information and education campaigns and assist, in a limited way, to equip and enable local government units and communities to increase their capacity to be prepared to confront hazards that come their way.This include conducting evacuation drills, information, education and communication drives, prepositioning resources, and training and equipping emergency response units and community volunteers. Inclusive national, regional and local DRRM planning is given emphasis to prepare organizations for a worst case likely scenario that may happen. With the DILG taking the lead in this thematic area, they have now drawn up a new local government preparedness system. A few days ago, the DILG has launched a Guide Book for actions to be undertaken by the local chief executives in actual preparation for an impending hazard forecasted to hit their respective locality. It is some sort of a DRR “playbook” for local chief executives.

The effectivenessof Thematic Area 3, Disaster Response, is greatly dependent on the area’s state of preparedness. Response only begins during or immediately after a disaster and emphasizes the need for a systematic and organized approach to providing rescue, relief such as food, water, health, shelter, psycho-social support, among others, body retrieval and identification, and early recovery. The DSWD, as the lead government agency has for its part undertaken a number of “game changing” systems and processes to improve and optimize the delivery of basic services required in response operations during and post calamities. In close coordination with the two other thematic areas, response operations are now more focused and deliberate. In fact, to institutionalize this, the NDRRM Council, has approved the NationalDisaster Response Plan which now serves as the reference for a doctrinal implementation of national disaster response operations.

Thematic Area 4 or the Rehabilitation and Recovery phase focuses on restoring and improving the facilities, livelihood and living conditions of affected communities. With the recent disasters, such as Typhoons Sendong and Pablo, Zamboanga Siege, Bohol Earthquake, and the most recent SuperTyphoon Yolanda, we have adhered to the Build-Back-Better Principle.This has been mentioned often, but what exactly does this mean? First of all, this is not restricted to the field of infrastructure and buildings, rather it is a first step to building greater resilience across the various sectors of the affected areas, including social, economic, physical and institutional. Building Back Better translates to outcomes such as increasing overall health and nutrition, education, gender quality, rights of PWDs and the elderly. It focuses on improving people’s livelihood and building financial security for the population to be more capable of absorbing the shocks caused by hazards. In terms of infrastructure, it involves ensuring that buildings, facilities, homes and utilities are built according to upgraded standards, and techniques and quality materials, in safer or low risk areas and adapting to the hazards which may be present.

These four thematic areas are all inter-related activities geared towards strengthening our DRRM. A failure to deliver in one thematic area will have a great impact on the others. A significant emphasis is given on prevention and mitigation asa critical key thematic area. This can best be expressed in the words of Helen Clark, the Administrator of the UNDP: “every dollar spent reducing people’s vulnerability to disasters saves around seven dollars in economic losses.”[3]

I have extensively discussed the substantial progress in our DRRM framework and plan. But a more crucial development is the financial support to both the LGUs and the NGAs. In the local level, not less than 5% of the estimated revenue from regular sources shall be set aside as the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund (LDRRMF), 70 % of which is allocated for prevention, mitigation and preparedness programs; and 30% is set aside as Quick Response Fund (QRF). In the national level, the agencies in the forefront of disasters were also given their own QRFs for immediate response, relief and recovery programs in order that situation and living conditions of people in communities or areas stricken by disasters, calamities, epidemics, or complex emergencies, may be normalized as quickly as possible.

On the ground, the local governments institutionalized this paradigm shift through the establishment of the Local DRRM Offices, formulation of DRRM Plans, strengthening of their disaster volunteers and responders, and provision of appropriate equipment to be used in saving lives during disasters.

Tweaking the Process

Notwithstanding the strengths of the spirit and intent of the law and the consequential developments, there were perceived lapses in DRRM, notably in the experiencesofTyphoons Sendong, Pablo, Bohol earthquake and the most recent Super Typhoon Yolanda.