Resilience as a way of life

A few years ago, we realized we had to reimagine our approach to natural hazards in the Philippines after experiencing the onslaught of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” (International name: Haiyan) in 2013. Instead of exclusively focusing on relief and recovery efforts, we needed to get more engaged in the disaster preparedness, prevention, and mitigation phases. The Philippines is, after all, located in an area susceptible to typhoons, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. Thus began the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation’s transition into an organization dedicated to resilience, and our journey to develop the first privately-run national emergency operations center in the world.

In the past year, we have experienced typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and now a pandemic—the four natural hazards and risks for which our Emergency Operations Center was designed to handle. As I write this, we have entered our eighth month of quarantine from the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s been a test for us, both organizationally and as a country.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it is that our investments and efforts in resilience have been invaluable. Organizations like PDRF usually only become visible during times of disaster when we enter our response and recovery phases. But the truth is that the real work takes place at the preparedness, mitigation, and prevention phases. Our time spent in training, building networks, and improving our capacity makes us a stronger, more responsive organization.

At no time has this become more apparent than during this pandemic. Our ability to coordinate and respond with a broad front of partners over an extended period of time is the result of years of networking with many corporations, government agencies, and international institutions. Joint training exercises and a solid focus on inter-operability are at the foundation of this progress. This has all been undertaken from well outside our comfort zones, with most people working remotely from each other.

This practice of resilience as a way of life has enabled us to respond quickly and in a variety of ways to both the Taal Volcano eruption and COVID-19. We’ve been able to provide meals, water, test kits, personal protective equipment, ventilators, logistics, accommodations, and services in partnership with many companies and organizations, both domestic and international.

As we move ahead, we all now have to prepare for a very different future. Aside from the fact that the risk of typhoons, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions will continue to be a reality for us, the added risk of pandemic adds a very different dimension to our work. The possibility of multiple events (think pandemic plus typhoon) at the same time is already happening. We will have to prepare and work in different, new ways. This pandemic represents a very different type of disaster—an extended “long emergency” as opposed to a sudden onset event measured in seconds and days. The nature of our resilience and response will need to be completely different.

The reality is that COVID-19 will be with us for an extended period of time, perhaps even evolving into a seasonal type of disease requiring constant monitoring and vaccinations. And until a vaccine actually becomes available for most of our population, we’ll all have to learn how to live with this disease. Social behavior will need to adjust and minimum health standards will need to be maintained to control the spread of COVID-19. Businesses, organizations, government, and other institutions have already implemented new protocols for their workers. These protocols will likely be in place for a very long time, if not permanently. All these new practices will need to be baked into our daily lives.

It is now more important than ever to adapt our thinking for resilience to become a way of life.

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Guillermo M. Luz is chief resilience officer of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (www.pdrf.org).

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