PH initiates ASEAN reinsurance program against catastrophies

The Philippines has teamed up with other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members to improve catastrophic reinsurance initiatives that will help communities across the region recover faster from the impact of natural disasters.

In a statement, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Philippines is also working on improving building standards to ensure that structures are climate-resilient, and is expediting the rehabilitation of existing irrigation systems.

Dominguez also said that they are working on constructing new irrigation systems, particularly in the northern and southern parts of country, among other initiatives to mitigate the impact of erratic climate patterns resulting from global warming.

Underscoring the urgency of addressing the impact of climate change on the economy, Dominguez said that he has assigned an assistant secretary in the Department of Finance to focus primarily on this aspect.

Dominguez tasked Finance Assistant Secretary and Spokesperson Paola Alvarez to work on developing mechanisms that would make disaster-prone areas in the country more resilient against calamities.

“We are working with the different ASEAN countries as well as our different agencies to improve the catastrophic reinsurance (programs), to improve the standards for construction of homes and buildings,” Dominguez said.

“We are working with [our] Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Department of Agriculture, to mitigate the effects of climate change,” said Dominguez at a recent forum on the Philippine economy organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The CSIS is a bipartisan, nonprofit policy research group that provides proposed policy solutions to current and emerging global issues. It is headed by John Hamre, a former deputy secretary of the US Department of Defense.

This private think tank, which has a contingent of policy experts in various fields, is regularly called upon by the US Congress, the White House and the media to offer recommendations on improving US strategy on a wide range of global concerns.

Dominguez said at the CSIS forum that the impact of climate change is now being increasingly felt in the Philippines, particularly in Mindanao, which used to be mostly typhoon-proof, but now appears to be on the path of many tropical storms that have occurred recently in the country.

“As you know, [in Mindanao] we never had typhoons there. We had typhoons once every 70 years in Mindanao,” Dominguez said.

“However, now we are observing that with climate change, the typhoons seem to be forming further south in the Pacific Ocean, and which brings northern Mindanao directly in the path of the typhoons,” the official added.

He said this adverse effect of climate change has, in the recent past, led to flashfloods in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, two of Mindanao’s highly urbanized cities; and also in the province of Bukidnon, a major food producer in southern Philippines.

The Philippines has recently made available a R1 billion insurance fund under its Parametric Insurance Pilot project to 25 disaster-prone provinces in the country to help them act faster and better respond to the devastating impact of natural calamities.