MANILA – Members of the Philippine House of Representatives and the Senate have been urged to pass soonest a bill that will enable the country to deal effectively with problems arising from climate change.
The bill, known as the proposed Philippine Disaster Risk Management Act of 2009, seeks to impose penalties such as fines and imprisonment on violators of policies to be adopted by the government regarding climate change.
Dr. Helen Mendoza, the president of the Philippine Network on Climate Change, cited the urgent need for the House and the Senate to pass the bill as well as allocate the funds needed to minimize the detrimental effects of climate change such as storms, floods and earthquakes.
Mendoza disclosed that in 2008, more than 13 million Filipinos were affected by natural disasters as she pointed out the government could minimize the gravity of their impact as well as the increasing number of casualties if measures to protect disaster-prone areas were in place.
At the same time, lawyer Eunice Sano of the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University School of Government said the bill seeks to punish government officials who neglect or deprive funding to national and local disaster risk management programs.
Sano noted that the bill has already passed second reading in the House while the Senate has favorably acted on the same measure at the committee level.
Santo emphasized the immediate enactment of the bill into a law would improve disaster risk management and save lives.
According to Sano, one interesting penal provision is the imposition of a fine equivalent to $1,000 and imprisonment of a maximum of six years for the “buying, consumption and resale” of relief goods, equipment as well as other aid commodities intended for victims of natural or man-made disasters.
This particular provision, Sano said, aims to put an end to the abuse committed by government officials handling the funds and relief goods from aid organizations, which have been evident in relief operations in the past.
For her part, Maria Kalayaan Pulido-Constantino of the international aid and cause-oriented group Oxfam said the bill’s passage will re-orient the strategy particularly of local governments in dealing with disaster from the “reactive to preventive mode.”
Constantino explained that Oxfam favors localized risk studies to improve development planning that incorporates risk reduction to ensure access of vulnerable communities to scientific and evidence-based information related to the risks that they face.
Constantino lamented that lack of funds for adaptive measures to climate change has been neglected in the national budgets of poor countries, including the Philippines.
So far, the Department of Science and Technology has a program to provide early warning devices and better equipment for the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration.
But climate change activists agreed that this was not enough in the absence of a law that adopts and strengthens policies on disaster risk management.
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