Senator Imee Marcos on Thursday, October 24, stressed the need for lawmakers to include adequate funding for green infrastructure in the proposed P6. 352-trillion national budget to address typhoon and flooding problems especially brought about by severe tropical storm “Kristine.”
Marcos noted that under the 2025 national budget, funding for infrastructure is expected to reach P1.28-trillion. With this amount, she said, the government should include “green infrastructure” for the first time.
“Let’s start with simple solutions at the community level, such as expanding mangrove forests and planting indigenous bayog or Bambusa spinosa, which the ancient Filipinos used for housing, and gabion species, along riverbanks,” Marcos said.
The senator also broached the use of permeable materials to replace all cement or "gray infrastructure."
She also suggested building a pilot model of a “sponge city” able to withstand and absorb heavy rainfall, similar to those proliferating in flood-prone areas in China and India.
“The budget is always focused on gray infrastructure, purely concrete structures, but we can’t deny that these materials aren’t permeable and can’t absorb rainwater,” Marcos pointed out.
Undoubtedly, she said, it would take up a huge amount of money to build underground cistern city centers such as those found in Amsterdam and Singapore.
“But far more expensive would be the lives, businesses and homes that would otherwise be destroyed,” she stressed.
Marcos noted even the United Nations has taken note of the fact the Philippines is among the countries that is most vulnerable to disasters.
It has, in fact, chosen the Philippines to headquarter the new Loss and Damage Fund to finance climate change adaptation.
“We need to invest in solutions like vertical parks, rooftop gardens, and void decks. The climate is deteriorating at a faster rate than anyone expected, it's time to fund green spaces even in urbanized zones,” she said.
On Thursday, authorities pegged the number of casualties from the tropical storm at 20 people. Tropical storm Kristine shuttered government offices, schools and private establishments on the country’s main island of Luzon as rescuers struggle to reach residents still stranded in the Bicol-region, the hardest hit region in the country by “Kristine.”