Taal and disaster resilience

It’s been only more than a year and the country again faces the potential wrath of a Taal Volcano eruption. The impact of such an event will not be limited to the economy in terms of production losses, but also in the dislocation of hundreds of thousands of people who continue to live around the active volcano.

The economic recession being experienced by the country started in the first quarter of 2020 when gross domestic product (GDP) shrank as Taal’s eruption disrupted production at nearby industrial zones. The National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) pegged the foregone income across four key industries in the Calabarzon region affected by the volcanic eruption on Jan. 12, 2020, at P4.3 billion.

More than the economic disruption, however, there was the displacement of nearly 400,000 residents around the volcano. Neda said this figure included at least 2,761 sustenance farmers who also depended on Taal Lake for livelihood. Thousands of lost jobs in the tourism and hospitality sector were also noted; the volcano was a major tourist destination, and the eruption forced many establishments around scenic Tagaytay to close shop. The government had to shell out P160 million in livelihood assistance to farmers and fisherfolk affected by the eruption and another P30 million in five-year loans worth P25,000 each.

The impact of the volcanic eruption may seem not that big when ranged against the whole economy. Ernesto Pernia, then socioeconomic planning secretary and head of Neda, noted that immediately after any disaster such as Taal’s eruption, a lot of economic activities would ensue in terms of reconstruction and rehabilitation. This, he pointed out, would create jobs and stimulate the local economy again and at least partly compensate for the foregone income.

While this is true, the Taal disaster was yet another reminder that the country needed to invest in disaster resilience and to build back better. Simply rebuilding will make displaced people go back to the same areas and face the same risks from future eruptions, while businesses at risk of disaster are allowed to continue without taking into consideration the special circumstances of their location.

The Asian Development Bank, a major source of development financing for the Philippines, has called on the government to address the need for greater planning and resilience measures against natural disasters. While the local effects of natural disasters are often short-lived, partly because residents temporarily evacuated from the affected areas are allowed to return later, the relatively rapid restoration of economic livelihoods and activity should not be viewed as a sign of disaster resilience. “If nothing further is done except the restoration of activity, returning to these affected areas simply means placing the same populations and assets back in the path of disasters,” the ADB said in a report titled “Disaster Resilience in Asia” released last July 1.

In the case of Taal, an active and unpredictable volcano, there is a need to invest more in disaster risk reduction, ecosystem management, land-use planning, and supply chain management to avoid disruptions in the delivery of goods to and from areas within the volcano’s reach. In a television interview tackling Taal’s recent restlessness, director Renato Solidum of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) said a long-term development plan should be made in localities around the volcano to prevent the regular evacuation of residents whenever Taal acted up. Essentially, he said a development plan should be considered where livelihoods could still exist very close to the volcano, or along the lakeshore. However, major economic activities should be placed further out of reach of volcanic eruptions.

The national government should consider such planning an urgent necessity for all areas frequently affected by natural disasters, and not only for Taal. Damage from each natural disaster should have been going down through the years had the country invested in effective and sustained disaster resiliency programs. As Solidum put it, it should not be a case of “advance and retreat, advance and retreat”—for residents who have to flee disasters in their areas every time and come back to resume their lives without improvements in the protection of their homes and livelihoods, and for businesses whose activities are disrupted and, pressed for time to be up again immediately, have to rebuild to the old, unsafe standards. The proper disaster resiliency efforts and initiatives can help stop the vicious cycle in many parts of the country that are always at the mercy of natural calamities.