Loren presses more budget for disaster reduction activities

Senator Loren Legarda yesterday pressed the inclusion of sufficient allocation for disaster risk reduction (DRR) and infrastructure rehabilitation in the proposed 2010 national budget, which the Senate hopes to approve before the Christmas break.

Loren said that amendments to increase the rehabilitation portion of the P1.541-trillion budet are likely, but stressed that funding for DRR activities must also be given importance in the funding allocation. The proposed budget, which is 8.1 percent higher than the P1.426 trillion budget in 2009, had been passed on third and final reading by the House of Representatives on a vote of 176 to 5.

"The Senate has very little time to approve the budget in the two or three weeks until the Christmas break, but it can be done," said Loren, the chair of the Senate Committee on Climate Change.

"Still, I'd like to stress we must make maximum use of time to put amendments that would make the 2010 budget reflective of our needs as a nation facing very serious climate change issues," she added.

Loren said the Senate wants to approve the proposed budget this month to ensure against the use of a reenacted budget in the first few months of 2010.

The House and the Senate have both approved a P12-billion supplemental budget for the rehabilitation of the ravages brought by tropical storms Ondoy and Pepeng.

Still, Loren stressed that funding for DRR activities is as important because they are intended to minimize the loss of lives and properties during calamities whose intensities and effects are made worse by climate change.

"The many disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures in the recently passed Climate Change Act will also need funding because we need to act now, not tomorrow. We cannot push the schedule of DRR activities until funding can be set aside for them in the 2011 budget," she said.

Loren said that with climate change affecting the whole world, the Philippines must brace itself for stronger typhoons like Ondoy, Pepeng and Santi, and the floods and landslides they spur.

"Our budget must be responsive to climate change developments as we expect about 25 or so typhoons to hit the country next year," said Loren, the United Nations Champion for Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction for the Asia-Pacific Region.

DRR activities include the empowerment of first-responders to calamities like local government units (LGUs) so they would have the training, manpower and equipment to minimize the loss of lives and properties, Loren added. DRR activities also include geographical hazard mapping and the relocation of communities away from potential disaster sites, said Loren.