Author: climaterealityph

With my dormmates, I made little preparations and was not bothered too much about the looming storm. It was a normal evening for us. It was the calm before the storm. Early morning, we woke up to the whooshing winds that created creaking sounds of tree branches around the dormitory. We even joked around and laughed at the sight of forgotten laundry outside being swept away by the wind. “Mao ra na? (Is that all you got?),” one poked fun. “Sige pa (More!),” another shouted. After a while, the monster winds and heavy downpours came, blurring the vision, slamming the doors and objects, and toppling down the tall, decades-old trees around the campus. Our high spirits were replaced with fear and worry. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was just as scary as the news reported. I thought of my family and hoped they were safe.

These all happened more than 10 years ago on the 8th of November 2013. It was a traumatic day for the people in Eastern Visayas when Super Typhoon Yolanda (internationally known as ‘Haiyan’) wreaked havoc in the region. It was one of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall in the Philippines with a destructive wind speed of up to 315 km/h (195 mph). It brought massive storm surges, claimed over 6,300 lives, and caused widespread destruction to areas along its path.

Because tropical cyclones or typhoons are expected to enter a country facing the Pacific Ocean where most storms brew, people, including me, often times shrug off the alarming reports. Over time, I believe we may have developed an “optimism bias” or the mistaken belief that our chances of experiencing negative events in life are lower; hence, the lack of preparedness. This may have added to the impact of the disaster, along with the communication breakdown in the reporting of weather events at that time. Some locals were reportedly not familiar with the term “storm surge” or the rise in sea level when water is pushed toward the shore by the strong winds. People didn’t seem to be too alarmed to act with little to no knowledge that this hazard was comparable to tsunamis caused by strong earthquakes. Unfortunately, this hazard and the lack of action led to thousands of lives lost in Tacloban City.

All eyes were on Tacloban, the regional capital, where a vast majority of the damage to life and properties was reported. We were not at the ground zero of the tragic event, but my hometown, Ormoc City, was not spared from devastation. It was an unforgettable experience to be living without water and electricity supply for months as if we were transported back to hundreds of years before electricity was invented. We had to rely on donations and eat unhealthy food like canned goods and instant noodles after lining up in long queues during relief distribution. Full recovery and rehabilitation took years, especially for low-income families.

Years later, I was fortunate to get a job in the city government where I learned more about disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) through various training and capacity development activities. This ignited a fire in me to advocate for DRRM and to translate the knowledge into action for the benefit of our people—to reduce disaster impacts if not avoid catastrophe.

When I transferred to the planning office, I further put my learning into practice. I helped ensure that resilience is mainstreamed in the local plans of the city and make resilience a way of life in the long run, not just on paper or for the sake of complying with national policies and obtaining awards for the city government.

I heard about the free global training of The Climate Reality Project at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in July 2020. I did not hesitate to sign up. This was perhaps the turning point in my career because it helped deepen my knowledge and understanding of the magnitude of the climate crisis. It was eye-opening to know how manmade climate change magnifies disaster risks and adversely affects multiple sectors and systems of society, including the health system, as zoonotic diseases are threatening us with future pandemics.

Knowing something so important, I felt responsible for making people realize the gravity of the problem. I shared what I learned and did not keep it to myself. The training helped me improve my capacity to work on building resilience to climate risks and disasters for our city. I have also done presentations using Mr. Gore’s Truth in Ten slides and used a local lens to make it more relatable to the audience. With this, I was able to raise awareness and encourage individual and collective climate actions by presenting the existential problem and its solutions to my colleagues, students, and grassroots communities.

Fast forward to the present, my advocacy and commitment to serve remains as I take on the role of the Visayas Coordinator of the Climate Reality Philippines. Although I left the city government, I look forward to fruitful partnerships with local government units, the academe, the private and business sectors, the communities, and other stakeholders in the Visayas region. I am excited to delve deeper into the areas of energy transition, curbing plastic pollution, promoting active mobility, and tracking and increasing access to climate finance.