DISASTER-RESILIENT COMMUNITY INDEX: MEASURING THE RESILIENCY OF BARANGAYS IN TACLOBAN, ILIGAN, DAGUPAN, AND MARIKINA CITIES

Ebinezer R. Florano, Ph.D.*

Assistant Professor

National College of Public Administration and Governance

University of the Philippines

Diliman, 1101 Quezon City

ABSTRACT

The Disaster-Resilient Community Index (DRCI) is a tool developed by the author that can be used to assess the resiliency of communities vis-à-vis natural disasters. It consists of five thematic areas, namely: (1) governance, (2) knowledge and education, (3) risk assessment, (4) risk management and vulnerability reduction, and (5) disaster preparedness and response. Their 199 indicators were based from a guidance note that lists down all characteristics of a disaster-resilient community. Data were gathered through the use of checklists which were triangulated with the following methods:  (1) documents review, (2) focus group discussions at the barangay level, and (3) interviews with relevant local government officials. The DRCI was used in assessing the resiliency of 12 barangays in four cities, namely: Tacloban, Iligan, Dagupan, and Marikina which were hit by strong typhoons from 2009 to 2013, i.e., Yolanda, Sendong, Pepeng, and Ondoy, respectively. The DRCI can compare the average index values of all barangays by city and identify the strengths and weaknesses of each barangay and city.

Read in the Third National Climate Conference of the National Academy of Science and Technology of the Department of Science and Technology in partnership with OML Center, Philippines held on 25 September 2014 in Traders Hotel, Roxas Boulevard, Manila, Philippines.

This presentation is based on a research report entitled, “Community Governance for Disaster Recovery and Resilience: Four Case Studies in the Philippines” that was carried out with the aid of a grant from the Global Development Network/Japan International Cooperative Agency (GDN/JICA) administered by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) as East Asian Development Network (EADN ) Secretariat.

BUILDING BACK A BETTER NATION:DISASTER REHABILITATION AND RECOVERY IN THE PHILIPPINES

Ebinezer R. Florano, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

National College of Public Administration and Governance

University of the Philippines

and

Joe-Mar S. Perez

Training Specialist

Office of Civil Defense

Department of National Defense

Abstract

The paper explores the operationalization of Disaster Rehabilitation and Recovery (DRRE) in the Philippines context. It is divided into four sections. The first section discusses the origins and development of DRRE as a thematic area. It highlights the paradigm shift in the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management System which was brought about by the enactment of Republic Act 10121 as its legal framework. The second section discusses the design principles of DRRE. It explains how it is carried out through the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan. It explains the involvement of the communities in rehabilitation and recovery programs. It also discusses the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) as a specific DRRE tool. To further illustrate the use of PDNA, the third section presents the case of Davao Oriental, a province in the Mindanao region, which was heavily devastated by Typhoon “Pablo” (International Name: “Bopha”) in December 2012. It also explains how civil property rights serve as among the major considerations in the aftermath of a disaster and how the PDNA takes into account the civil property rights of the victims.

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Presented in the panel on “The Role of Law and Legal Services in DisasterResponse” of the XVIII ISA (InternationalSociology Association) World Congress of Sociology held on 13 July 2014,Pacifico Yokohama, Yokahama, Japan.  

TYPHOON HAIYAN: THE ILLUSION OF THE AVOIDABLE DISASTER

Written for Zeit Online by Felix Lill. Below is the English (poor) translation from Babelfish. For the original German version, see

http://www.zeit.de/wissen/2013-11/philippinen-taifun-haiyan-praevention 

 

Researchers draw a bitter balance sheet: The Filipinos were ill-prepared for the typhoon . And, although the risk was known and had days lead . Felix Lill

What is a house, what a car, an animal or a human? Where Typhoon Haiyan has raged most , you do not know that these days. The storm has churned out all crushed and durchgequirlt . Trees , boats, tin roofs . And then he spat it back to the people - or even with them in it.

Who now looks from the air to the Philippines , sees something that resembles a gigantic dump. Boats are there where cars drove past . Car wrecks where children played otherwise .

Frightening. And even more frightening is that we already know of such images. After the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004, it looked at the coasts of Thailand and numerous Indonesian islands exactly - and worse - from . And in 2011 , after a tsunami triggered by Japan's tsunami had flooded East Coast, we received similar images from Fukushima.
Wanted to learn to be better prepared for these disasters , develop early warning systems and operate better Coastal protection . How that would go , you should know that in Asia. It was simply a little . And now they are back , the images of destruction.

" From the global experience of the past years, we have to take as much as possible," warned even a year ago Mahmoud Mohieldin at a conference in 2011 severely affected by earthquake and tsunami Sendai. The Egyptian politician is one of the World Bank directors and then spoke in front of more than 200 international decision makers . People seemed to agree . It should something happen .

And now , in the Philippines ? The residents were better prepared ? The balance is from bitter - because the answer is no. "We had to train our people better," says Ebinezer Florano . The social scientist at the University of Manila criticized not only that the government now takes days to help those affected. One could also advance to better plan , he says. "People have not been well informed. " Although everyone has known this day that a strong typhoon was coming. "But the talk was also of a storm surge . Most people know what to do with this term . When the typhoon came with the tsunami , she thought suddenly , that would be a tsunami. "

Although an average of 19 typhoons a year to sweep the Philippines, the population was not adjusted to such a heavy storm that brings so violent floods with it . 800,000 people had indeed been brought to safety , journalists report . But the number of people affected now stands at more than ten times . According to information from the United Nations World Food Programme about 2.5 million people need urgent help . Maybe have a great deal of damage and many deaths can be avoided.

The death of many could have been avoided

Easy it would have been better to prepare it says Florano . Then people would have been not so much surprised , the current chaos might be smaller. Many people died because they did the wrong thing out of ignorance. So many are running on the run from the gusts of wind sweeping everything in the basement of sports halls. When the water came , they were drowned there. " When I compare my country with others, we do not cut particularly well ," said Florano .

The researchers compared the situation in Manila shortly after Typhoon Haiyan with the situation in the first days after two major natural disasters in Japan. His analysis : " There, things just work . " Two and a half years ago Florano had traveled to the Tohoku region, which was severely damaged by the earthquake and the resulting tsunami triggered in 2011. 16 years previously he had studied in the region of Kobe in western Japan , the consequences of an earthquake in 1995 , by 4500 people were killed .

" In both cases, the Japanese went very quietly to the disaster. People knew how they had to behave ," says Florano . " Even under great anxiety remained the social order , individuals took back for the good of the group . " His compatriots go sometimes from these characteristic , he says.

 

U.P. SYSTEM-WIDE FORUM ON "REDUCING RISKS AND DISASTERS DUE TO RAINFALL VARIABILITY"