Despite the country being prone to natural hazards, such as earthquakes and typhoons, a survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) found that Filipinos’ preparedness against disasters has declined in the past year.

In the annual SWS survey review conducted on Feb. 7, SWS vice president Gerardo Sandoval presented the analysis of the social weather in 2022, which includes the preparedness of Filipinos against natural disasters.

In the nationwide survey conducted from Dec. 10 to 14, 2022 with 1,200 respondents, most Filipinos said they are “very prepared” (29 percent) and “somewhat prepared” (43 percent) for a typhoon as strong as Yolanda (Haiyan).

There were 18 percent that said they are “somewhat not prepared” and 10 percent that said they are “not prepared at all.”

“Given a typhoon as strong as Yolanda, majority of the public say that they are very or somewhat prepared. We have a total of about 72 percent saying they are very or somewhat prepared. But compared to the previous surveys, in particular that of the December 2019, we see here that among Filipinos who claimed that they are very prepared for a strong typhoon dropped from 47 percent to 29 percent. So that’s indeed a big drop among Filipinos, saying that they are very prepared for a typhoon as strong as that,” Sandoval said.

Typhoon Yolanda struck the Philippines on Nov. 8, 2013. It has been called the most powerful storm to make landfall in recorded history.

In the December 2022 survey, SWS also found the majority of Filipinos that said they are very prepared (18 percent) or somewhat prepared (34 percent) for an earthquake as strong as the one that hit Cebu and Bohol on Oct. 15, 2013.

About 26 percent said they are “somewhat not prepared” and 22 percent said they are “not prepared at all.”

“Similarly, for an earthquake as strong as the one that hit Cebu and Bohol back in 2013, we saw here that also majority of Filipinos are very or somewhat prepared. But just the same, compared to the previous survey in December 2019 where 35 percent said they were very prepared, now it’s down to 18 percent among Filipinos saying they are very prepared for an earthquake as strong as that,” Sandoval said.

The survey review has been a tradition for SWS, in partnership with the AIM Rizalino S. Navarro Policy Center for Competitiveness (formerly AIM Policy Center) and with support from the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) Philippines, to assess the past year from the unique perspective of survey research since 2001.