Too much rain for the next Premier (or President!)

Dr Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is probably the first President of the Philippines to seriously recognize that the effects of global climate change will have an impact on Philippine society. Dr Arroyo has to be commended for not glossing over this issue. Why this sudden epiphany? Was it the forthcoming visit to Mr Obama Esq?

I reckon that she has read the latest studies on environment and how it can retard economic growth. That’s good for starters.

Thus environment is the third E in her summary of achievements of her 8 year watch. For the first E economics, even her co-professionals and critics in the business, like Winnie Monsod (who BTW has told a succession of Chancellors and Presidents of UP that she will finish her dissertation!) will admit that she has done an admirable job in doubling the size of the economy despite the concerns over legitimacy and the string of corruption scandals involving her spouse and political allies. The economy grew despite a global recession. It is likely that her macroeconomic reforms has buffered the Philippines against the recession. How long this buffer will last will be seen in the next term of the Philippine executive. For poverty reduction, the jury is still out. IAs for education, her statistics are challenged by several studies made by education professionals. The best that can be said about education in the Arroyo years is that the results are mixed.

On environment concerns, the first term Dr Arroyo focused on liberalizing the investment climate for natural resource exploitation well in accordance with her neoliberal policies. This brought about a year of windfall for companies involved in mining exploration and environmental impact assessment. It also brought in new freshmen for UP’s mining engineering department whose freshmen intake dropped to zero about 7 years ago. With new job opportunities engineers started re-tooling themselves in the environment professions. However with the collapse of the big banks, major exploration investments were put on hold.

The liberalized regime resulted in resource-use conflicts with indigenous peoples, environmentalist groups and people’s organizations. However with the pull back of exploration, an uneasy truce has prevailed. In her last SONA Dr Arroyo has mentioned the risks for climate change. This is rather late in her term since the issue of climate change risks is at least 20 years old and 10 years ago, it became very fashionable and politic. However 20 years ago, advocates of climate change mitigation were on the fringe of public opinion.

The buzz word today is climate change “adaptation” but the present administration focuses on mitigation. Nonetheless that Dr Arroyo has made this a key but extremely late policy of her administration suggests that the economic indicators of climate change has made an impression on her. The Philippines and much of the world’s economy relies on agriculture. Erratic changes in rainfall patterns has doomed the economic recovery of several subtropical countries and has produced the newest class of UN recognized refugees, the environmental ones. Changes in monsoon patterns can mean at least a loss 2% GDP for the Philippine economy. That still does not factor in the costs of flooding and landslides on the economy which can cost at least 10 billion pesos a year. The Philippines is now seeing its own environmental refugees. One need not travel to far off provinces to meet them but many are on the fringes of Metro Manila or even inside the metro itself.

The next Philippine executive will have to deal with population displacement. An American environmental scientist and geographer who has done extensive research in the Philippines once said in a lecture last April that the Filipino diaspora overseas has reduced the pressure on the environment especially in provinces with marginal environments and economies. These provinces have reported increases in forest cover. However rainfall shift and unpredictable monsoons are beginning to make historically productive environments such as Central Luzon and South central and eastern Mindanao into marginal environments. This will threaten the food security of the nation and may half the economic growth prospects of the Philippines. The island provinces of the Visayas will be even more at risk due to their small size and limited water resources. Desertification and prolonged flooding are already the top two major threats to food security. The rice shortage of 2008 was partly due to the 2007 ENSO event which shaved off about 1.5 % of our GDP.

I learned about rainfall shifts as a major economic threat when I was studying in northern Australia.That is why agricultural research in that region focused on dry and wet tolerant crops. However Australians have been used to unpredictable rainfall regimes. Filipinos on the other hand are not used to this and it is only lately that farmers are starting to deal with it. On a visit to Cagayan Valley last April, I spoke with farmers who complained that their corn crop was ruined by a fungus as a result of unseasonal heavy rains. In fact the climate pattern for the supposed “dry” 2009 March to May “summer” season is more of the temperate ‘spring” rains than our “summer” dry. The same unexpected rainfall regime ruined the manggahan festival in Guimaras.

Geographers such as Jared Diamond of UCLA write in a series of papers that economic development is much hampered by the climate and geography of a region. The Philippines is cited as a showpiece case together with sub-Saharan African countries as a country wherein yearly climate related (typhoon) disasters cost so much in human development. While the Philippines has not yet experienced the climate related disease outbreaks in Africa, the epidemiological predictions do not look good. South Asian and Southeast Asian countries are likely to experience more intense rainfall and this couples with disease outbreaks. The Philippines with a barely reduced but still high population growth rate and expecting a flood of OFWs who have lost jobs overseas is not in a good position to deal with this. The response of our DOH and school authorities to the H1N1 pandemic and the flouting of quarantine and health regulations should open eyes.

Thus the claim of Dr Arroyo in her SONA that we are more prepared for climate related disasters and risks need to be taken with a grain of salt. If she were making an example of Bayani Fernando, think twice. The Philippines has just one Bayani Fernando and he was never able to mitigate flooding in Metro Manila but just ensured that floods will recede much faster (which is true). This doesn’t mean that the whole country is prepared. The rapid response of Bayani Fernando may be needed in every province and MMDA cannot handle a succession of disasters without exhausting its employees. At the rate things are going, very expensive engineering interventions must be made and some real solutions are bad politics (like abandoning Malabon and Navotas). BTW abandoning towns due to some environmental catastrophe isn’t new to the Philippines. The town of Taal in Batangas is an example of a town abandoned and re-established on a new site.

But Dr Arroyo who should make a perfect Premier (if Parliament nominates her and the President gives her a commission) with a concurrent environment portfolio given her workaholic habits has seen the economic numbers on this issue quite a bit late. Better late than never! It may be that she read Jared Diamond in Nature! Being an alum of the UP School of Economics, she should have complete access to the archive in JSTOR.

Her electorate to her advantage, are known survivors. But how long can they survive?

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