Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto urged the government Thursday to take advantage of the "timeout" requested by  health workers to  boost preparedness and response for oncoming typhoons.

Recto said efforts to improve the country's health care system during the modified enhanced community quarantine (MECQ) are needed not only to fight the COVID-19 pandemic "but also to get the country ready for another calamity – typhoons."

“Kung ang COVID-19 ay isang unos, may mga bagyo pang parating (If COVID-19 pandemic is a calamity, there are more to come)" he said in a statement. "That we will be fighting simultaneously at two disaster fronts is a certainty. We can pray for good "weather, but let us prepare for a bad typhoon season."

"It adds urgency to the mission. Let us use this two-week good weather window to, as they say, batten down the hatches," he added.

Recto warned that the country's resources "that have been stretched so thin" will not be able to cope with another disaster.

He cited hospitals that are full, evacuation centers are filled with the stranded, and schools are being used for quarantine.

"They have no room for another class of disaster victims, unless we bend the curve and reduce the space occupied and resources used by COVID-19 victims," said the senator.

He also raised concern that strong typhoons will become "some sort of a virus superspreader" if displaced families would be crammed in evacuation centers.

"So when we scramble to scale up health facilities and social protection, it is not only for this deadly virus, but also for the typhoons that can claim many lives," he pointed out.

Aside from the necessary facilities, Recto said the country should also have a "stable and resilient" food supply to avert hunger. He said the DSWD should continue prepositioning relief goods "so these can be rapidly deployed in typhoon-hit areas."

"At least 20 typhoons hit us each year, some brushing the fringes of our archipelago, others hitting our cities like a bull’s eye. Aside from being the tollgate to a typhoon passageway, we are perched atop the Ring of Fire. Example is Taal Volcano," he noted.