Disaster Risk Management
Even before Typhoon Frank devastated Metro Iloilo in June 2008, Guimaras senior planner Evan Anthony Arias, an authority in disaster risk management owing to his experience with the Petron oil spill in 2006, already saw the need to rethink how disasters should be handled in this part of the country, given the fact that Iloilo City and its environs have become too vulnerable to flooding and the onslaught of typhoons.
“There is a need to shift from Response Management to Risk Management,” Arias wrote in a paper he submitted in March 2007 to the World Bank Institute in line with Safe Cities, an on-line course on disaster risk management. Commending the establishment of a disaster action center in Iloilo City, he noted however that “…while (the center) addresses the need for effective disaster response and attempts to develop a culture of prevention by involving the barangay officials in disaster preparedness, the need for a more integrated approach using a framework that covers all components; preparedness and awareness, response and recovery, mitigation and prevention and institutional building/capacity enhancement is not yet addressed.”
To do this, Arias recommended the undertaking of a Disaster Risk Assessment “that would result to more understanding of the risks faced by each community and the factors of vulnerability of society and the built environment in Iloilo City.” The vulnerability of Iloilo City, he said, lies not only in the fact that it is flood-prone but also in its role as a regional center, thus resulting to a “complex development issue that requires an integrated approach to adequately analyze the risks, identify root causes and the appropriate interventions that should be pursued.”
Three elements comprise adverse scenarios for Iloilo City – the presence of hazard zones, the presence of vulnerable groups in hazard zones and the absence of structural mitigation measures. Hazard zones include coastal communities exposed to storm surges and tsunamis, and inundated areas that are flood-prone but zoned as residential. In these hazard zones can be found vulnerable groups — the informal settlers in coastal areas and residents of high-density subdivisions within flood prone areas. Iloilo City also has a poor drainage and sewerage system, and the flood control system is not yet functional.
Arias proposed that the Iloilo City government should review and revise its Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP) to adequately consider the hazard zones and install mitigating measures to reduce vulnerability. The land banking initiative of the city government, he added, should be maximized by setting up “attractive” relocation sites that are acceptable for informal settlers presently living in coastal areas. “The acquired lots should not only be reserved for potential squatters that might face eviction in the future but should be used proactively to remove vulnerable groups from hazard zones,” he wrote in his paper titled Disaster Risk Management: Iloilo City.
His other recommendations include strict enforcement of the building codes and zoning ordinances in flood-prone areas and coastal zones, and effective solid waste management to avoid clogging of waterways and drainage system. To improve data management for disaster risk reduction, Arias suggested the acquisition of information and communication technology facilities particularly the Geographic Information System (GIS) that can effectively enhance decision making by facilitating spatial analysis and create scenarios for all aspects of disaster risk management. This, he said, can also be an effective communication tool to disseminate information on disaster risks considering that GIS maps are more attractive and can be interactive. The flood-prone and tsunami prone areas should also be publicized in order to educate the public and promote stakeholder participation.
“The complex problem of flooding requires an approach anchored on the DRMMP model that should develop a city-wide disaster risk reduction agenda,” Arias wrote. “This approach will enable the city government to identify actions that need to be undertaken at various functional and organizational levels of the local government and those that need to be done by provincial, regional or national government and other entities.” A DRMMP or Disaster Risk Management Master Plan model is a tool that links a city’s urban development planning strategies and processes with disaster risk management.
However, more than two years after Arias wrote his paper and a year after experiencing the worst flood in its history, Iloilo City is yet to conduct a Disaster Risk Assessment to understand the risk we are all facing. While its disaster preparedness plan had identified top ten hazards confronting the city, it cannot just limit its actions to sending a wailing firetruck around Jaro to warn residents that the Salog River is about to overflow, evacuating residents along the riverbanks to safer grounds or passing a supplemental budget to buy more canned goods and instant noodles. Some concrete actions need to be done. Not unless the risks are identified and approaches are conceived, Iloilo City can never come up with short- and long-term solutions to abate the disasters threatening it.
As Albert Einstein puts it, “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Nereo C. Lujan
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