THE Philippines, like other countries trying to maintain its status as a good neighbor in the international community, cannot help but always reiterate its commitment to adopt anticipatory action to prevent widespread disasters related to natural calamities.
This is exactly what Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. did when he delivered his remarks at an international meeting called, “Anticipatory Action: A Commitment to Act Before Crises” recently. The United Nations, Germany and the United Kingdom are sponsors of the event.
Locsin assured other participants that the Philippines has “gained the wisdom that predicting, preventing and mitigating the shock and impact of a disaster are key to risk reduction and management.”
‘These words from the foreign
affairs secretary are good to hear, but they mean nothing to many Filipinos because they see with their own eyes how typhoons with ordinary strength cause landslides, massive floods and loss of lives
and property all over the nation.’
A motley group of academics, diplomats and scientists discussed “anticipatory action” which they defined as a set of actions taken to prevent or mitigate potential disaster impacts before a shock or before acute consequences are felt.
The meeting was a pre-event of the United Nations climate change conference or the COP26 (Conference of Parties) in Glasgow next month, and served as a venue to exchange views and experiences among nations in dealing with the severity and frequency of today’s natural disasters.
As expected, the nation’s top diplomat explained that the Philippine Development Plan and National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan are in place and working well, with data sharing among government and private agencies, creation of command systems and emergency operation centers at national and local levels.
He mentioned that Filipinos developed the HunterHazard app to provide land developers risk information and assessment of a particular area and the establishment of the Philippine Space Agency to strengthen hazard monitoring and forecasting through earth observation through satellite sensing.
These words from the foreign affairs secretary are good to hear, but they mean nothing to many Filipinos because they see with their own eyes how typhoons with ordinary strength cause landslides, massive floods and loss of lives and property all over the nation. Agricultural lands, too, are getting smaller because of the continuous conversion to residential subdivisions and commercial use.
One reason for this is the country’s lack of a National Land Use Act, which President Duterte had endorsed to Congress in all his state of the nation addresses from 2016 to 2019. Without this law that has been pending in Congress for almost two decades, the nation faces hunger, disease, economic degradation and more natural disasters such as landslides and floods.
And yet Locsin had the chutzpah to tell the international community that we are good at anticipatory action.
