#RealiTalk: Strengthening Local Climate Change Adaptation Actions with Vice Mayor Alfredo Coro II

February 16, 2022

For this month’s Realitalk, we talked to Pinoy Climate Reality Leader Alfredo Coro II about the impacts of Typhoon Odette (international name Rai) on the municipality of Del Carmen, Surigao Del Norte where he serves as Vice Mayor.

In this Realitalk feature, Vice Mayor Coro walked us through the climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures implemented in his municipality that helped reduce loss and damage from Odette—from climate change education, mangrove rehabilitation, establishment of sea walls against storm surges to the conduct of climate and disaster risk assessment and updating of local climate change action and disaster risk reduction plans.

Vice Mayor Coro also reflected on other measures needed to further build community resilience against weather events made more extreme by the prevailing climate emergency. He emphasized the need to drive investments to local climate change solutions, as well as the need for the national government and the private sector to work closely together with local government units on resilience building.

THE ONSLAUGHT OF TYPHOON ODETTE IS ANOTHER TESTAMENT TO THE WORSENING IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE COUNTRY. WHAT IS THE EXTENT OF THE DAMAGE IN DEL CARMEN? HOW DID THE MUNICIPALITY PREPARE FOR THIS CLIMATE-RELATED EVENT?

With the initial assessment that the typhoon classification of Odette being a Storm Signal #3, the Local Government of Del Carmen prepared the pre-disaster protocols and initial response protocols per Storm Signal #3 defined process.

Pre-emptive evacuation was done for all coastal and inland communities with pre-packed food items ready for distribution. Evacuation centers were designated with schools, public buildings, and some private homes as designed by our Municipal Disaster Risk Reduction (MDRR) Plan. The health team was ready for the immediate response and the MDRR, with the Philippine National Police (PNP), Bureau of Fire Protection (BFP), and Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), was ready for debris clearing to prepare for our road access.

Aftermath of Typhoon Odette in Del Carmen, Surigao Del Norte (Photo from Vice Mayor Coro)

On December 16, 2021, when Odette made landfall in the Municipality of Del Carmen, it was classified as a category 5 typhoon with the same intensity as Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda). As part of being ground zero, the typhoon and the tornadoes that came with it damaged and ravaged 100 percent of private and public infrastructure, 4942 homes, affecting the lives and livelihood of 6724 families. All of Del Carmen was left in ruins.

Given the extent of the damage of a Category 5 typhoon and empathizing with the employees as victims themselves, we allowed at least three days for each government employee to stabilize personal needs before we called them to report back to the office to start the mobilization efforts for response and relief operations. By December 30, 2021, the local government unit of Del Carmen released its first Situational Report, raised the flag, and completed two rounds of food assistance addressing the immediate needs of hunger, which resulted in zero percent crime in affected areas.

HOW DID THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC AFFECT PRE- AND POST-DISASTER EFFORTS? WHAT ARE THE CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION AND DISASTER RISK REDUCTION MEASURES BEING IMPLEMENTED BY THE MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT BEFORE TYPHOON ODETTE HIT? HOW DID THESE MEASURES HELP IN REDUCING LOSS AND DAMAGE FROM THE RECENT EXTREME WEATHER EVENT?

The COVID-19 risk was factored in already in the pre-disaster engagement with identified isolation facilities ready in both municipal and barangay levels separate from the identified evacuation centers.

During the landfall of Typhoon Odette, LGU Del Carmen and Siargao Islands had zero reported COVID cases. Thus, the risk for COVID infection was relatively low. Since 2020, Del Carmen never had an outbreak managing any risks that may arise from COVID threats through policy and process management.

Disaster risk reduction measures and disaster preparations have included the conduct of massive regular information, education, and communication efforts in every community, organization of Barangay Disaster Risk Reduction (BDRR) mechanisms and incorporating Barangay Health Emergency Response Teams (BHERT) operations, identification of evacuation centers and conduct of the pre-emptive evacuation procedures prior to the landfall, and the conduct of massive COVID vaccination drive to achieve 70 percent herd immunity prior to the Typhoon Odette landfall. The IEC and process validations are part of the Seal of Health Governance, an internationally recognized local government innovation, which was relaunched last September 2021, assuring the community of their active role in disaster management.

Del Carmen was already conducting climate change adaptation processes with the following initiatives pre-Odette:

Rehabilitation of the Del Carmen Mangrove Forest, the largest contiguous Mangrove Forest in the Philippines, which led to additional reforestation of at least 600 hectares in the last eight years and zero percent mangrove cutting.
Management of Sustainable Fishery through Marine Protected Areas, setting up of the MultiSpecie Hatchery, and piloting of Mariculture Platform leading to 98 percent reduction in illegal fishing activities.
Establishment of seawall as the engineered barrier for storm surge or tsunami impact to island communities of Caub, Del Carmen and San Jose.
Setting of Telemed Program for Health Sector to allow island-based communities access to health care.
Setting of Boat Bus Setup for the Students residing in islets to be educated from elementary to high school.
Conduct of studies on the impact of climate change on our biodiversity and enactment of key policies to strengthen the resiliency of the ecosystem classified as Key Biodiversity Area.
Integrating Climate Change IEC as part of the local curriculum of public education.
Establishment of the Siargao Climate Field School for Farmers and Fisherfolks for our food security frontliners to be more adaptive to climate change.

Because of these measures and initiatives, we were able to mitigate the impacts of the typhoon on our constituents. First, people were immediately moved to designated evacuation centers, minimizing the loss of lives from flying debris, including GI sheets from roofs. The mangrove forest and the sea wall protected people from the storm surge.

After structural assessments, only the roofs/ceilings of public infrastructure were damaged. The structural integrity of buildings was intact because it was designed to hold versus category 5 typhoons.

Trees and leaves have started sprouting and the green environment is fast recovering. Natural recovery was faster than expected and hopefully so did our rice plantations. This we can attribute to the care we have done for our environment.

Electricity from the main lines, including that of public facilities, is now restored. Sea/air transport was immediately restored to allow the flow of goods, experts, and trading. Bouncing back faster was achieved because of disaster management plans in place that enable us to mobilize external partners that will support the immediate restoration of public utilities.

Moreover, thanks to risk-informed protocols and measures in place, public health care recovered almost immediately. Both COVID and non-COVID vaccination continued immediately on December 20. Pre- and post-natal care was made available from December 18. Medical missions to communities were done from December 19 to stop the possible spread of water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases.

Lastly, school operations are now being prepared for face-to-face classes. With the systems in place, we will provide psychological first aid to all the youth (under 30 years old) using play therapy, as well as conduct a centralized feeding program with teachers and youth leaders.

A glimpse of Typhoon Odette impacts on infrastructure in Del Carmen, Surigao Del Norte (Photo from Vice Mayor Coro)

HOW DOES THE MUNICIPALITY ENSURE THAT ITS CLIMATE CHANGE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT PLANS ARE SCIENCE-BASED AND RISK-INFORMED? WHAT TOOLS, STRATEGIES, AND PROCESSES DOES IT EMPLOY?

The Local Government of Del Carmen has always advocated and utilized science-based governance in all its process and decisions in planning and investing for development through the following:

Conduct of initial investigation on the vulnerabilities and risks of the community, through the Ecotown Project Investment, which translated into the update of our plans and programs on a sectoral level (health, education, tourism, agriculture, fisheries, etc) to be climate change adaptive.
Strengthening of the municipality’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan and other municipal plans with the comprehensive disaster risk assessment (CDRA) and Local Climate Change Action Plan (LCCAP) as key guides to our review and updating process.
Establishment of the Siargao Climate Field School for Farmers and Fisherfolks to capacitate the farmers and fisherfolks on climate-smart practices to increase yield and catch despite the changing climate.
Influencing the Department of Education to update the curriculum of K to 12 with project Schools for Resilience (SCORE) to incorporate Siargao’s unique biodiversity and climate change risks to sustain the champions of environmental management.
Investment in communication infrastructure and training to manage pre- and post-disaster response.

BASED ON YOUR LEARNING FROM TYPHOON ODETTE, WHAT ADAPTATION MEASURES ARE YOU EYEING TO IMPLEMENT MOVING FORWARD IN DEL CARMEN? WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING THESE MEASURES?

The typhoon season happens yearly and is getting stronger because of the prevailing climate crisis. We need a system that allows faster response for food security, shelter rehabilitation. and livelihood recovery. We have an initial program on this, but it requires some tweaking based on the recent experience. We intend to pilot this in March 2022 to meet the typhoon season of November 2022.

The local government is considering redesigning public buildings to address multiple risks, including earthquakes and stronger typhoons. Our goal is to retain government operations and food storage facilities through difficult times. The challenge to making this program a reality is financing itself. We need to move around funds and gather additional support for the rehabilitation of public infrastructure.

We also intend to strengthen our mangrove rehabilitation and watershed reforestation program.

Moreover, we will increase IEC and investment in climate-smart agriculture and fisheries. For these initiatives, the challenges will be the financial limitation of the government and getting the private sector to invest in sustainable fishing practices.

Finally, we intend to influence national government policy on response operations during Category 5 typhoons or related extreme weather events, recognizing the value of early warning and communications versus post-disaster response of the government. The challenge will be the bureaucratic processes of the national government itself but we will work through this to accomplish our goals.

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WHAT SUPPORT DOES DEL CARMEN NEED FROM THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT AND THE PRIVATE SECTOR IN TERMS OF BUILDING RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS?

What we need from the national government and the private business sector is to augment investments on the following:

Air and sea assets. With 7000 inhabited islands in the Philippines, the need for air and sea assets to immediately transport food and other necessities for communities devastated by storms.
Sustainable artisanal fishery and small farming supply chains. There is a need to make fishing boats, fishing gears, vegetable seeds, farm equipment more accessible to farmers and fisherfolks through low-interest loans and insurance.
Remote communications infrastructure. We need to set up remote communications infrastructure that will enable local government personnel, who are victims themselves during extreme weather events and disasters, to connect with national government response teams immediately for post-disaster setup.
Health/water/education services and rehabilitation efforts. Any help to augment and improve current efforts to rehabilitate health and water services, as well as schools and other educational infrastructure.
Climate-proof storage for food and key documents. To ensure continuity of government operations, we need help for the climate-proofing of storage systems for key documents of the local government, as well as for food packs ready for post-disaster relief operations.

Destruction left Typhoon Odette on a school in Del Carmen, Surigao Del Norte (Photo from Vice Mayor Coro)

FOR THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN CONTRIBUTING TO CURRENT RELIEF AND REHABILITATION EFFORTS FOR DEL CARMEN, WHERE AND HOW COULD THEY SEND THEIR DONATIONS? WHAT DOES THE MUNICIPALITY NEED THE MOST?

The municipality is in urgent need of:

Rice donations (at least 5 kilos of rice per family per week)
Roofing support of 10 pieces of GI Sheet per household for more or less 4000 households
Livelihood support for farmers (vegetable seeds, coconut stalks, and livestock of chicken/hogs) and fisherfolks (fishing gears, fishing boat, tourism boats, mariculture platforms)

For In-Kind Donations:

Alfredo Coro
Office of the Vice Mayor
Del Carmen Municipal Complex
Del Carmen, Siargao Islands, Surigao del Norte

For Cash donations:

Account Name: Municipality of Del Carmen
Account Number: 0808039559035
DBP Siargao Branch
Swift Code: DBPHPHMM

climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and management, Local Climate Change Action Plans, Typhoon Odette, Typhoon Rai

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