BEYOND BUDGET
Assalamu alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
I had the honor of participating in the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (APMCDRR), which our country hosted for the first time in partnership with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction from Oct. 14 to 18.
With the theme, “Surge to 2030: Enhancing ambition in Asia-Pacific to accelerate disaster risk reduction,” it brought together over 12,000 in-person and online delegates and representatives to review risk reduction efforts, share innovative solutions, and make actionable commitments, emphasizing the need for accelerated action to meet the goals of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.
As you may know, our country is located along the Pacific Typhoon Belt and Pacific Ring of Fire, where yearly, around 20 typhoons batter our land, and more than 500 magnitude 4.0 and above earthquakes occur. It is no surprise then that the World Risk Index 2024 reports the Philippines at the top of its list while highlighting that “crises and risks are becoming increasingly complex and interconnected.”
I therefore laud President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (PBBM) for his full commitment to resilience and disaster risk reduction, underscoring in his opening remarks at the conference that “we must strive to create a future where the need for recovery becomes less frequent as we lay the foundations for a safer, more adaptive, inclusive, and disaster-resilient region.” His words resonated with the urgency of the situation, especially considering the devastation brought by severe tropical storm Kristine (Trami) last week.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. echoed PBBM’s sentiment, noting the need for deeper innovation and sustained commitment: “We’re innovating ways to allocate limited resources toward initiatives that enhance the resilience of institutions, communities, and individuals, both structurally and non-structurally.” His call to action stressed the importance of financial support in building resilient communities, aiming for a better balance between immediate response and long-term, durable solutions.
I believe that to truly achieve our Agenda for Prosperity, it is necessary that we invest in future-proofing our economy by stepping up our climate action. Thus, during the panel discussion, I shared some of the Department of Budget and Management’s initiatives to streamline budget allocations to ensure swift and efficient responses to disasters and to climate-proof the country for a sustainable future for Filipinos.
Chapter 15 of our Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028 provides our vision for communities, institutions, and the environment in the Philippines to be more resilient to the impacts of natural hazards and climate change. Towards this end, we have been tracking our climate change expenditures through the Climate Change Expenditure Tagging (CCET) since 2015. For Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, our budget for climate change expenditures will double to ₱1.020 trillion from ₱457.4 billion this year. This accelerated by 123 percent, the highest increase since we started CCET a decade ago. Bulk of which will be allocated to sustainable energy, up by over 2,000 percent to ₱391.9 billion; climate-smart industries and services, which will increase by about 3,644 percent to ₱228.8 billion; and food security, which will double to ₱62.4 billion.
We have also been harmonizing efforts to build resilience against calamities and disasters through the Risk Resiliency Program, and proactively implementing the Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Strategy at the national, local, and individual levels to develop sustainable financing mechanisms. It includes the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Fund, which may be used for aid, relief, and rehabilitation services to communities/areas, and is set to receive ₱31 billion in FY 2025, a 51.2 percent increase from the current budget. I’m happy to note that the fund has grown exponentially to ₱20.50 billion this year, a 925 percent increase from its initial allocation of ₱2 billion when it was established in 2010.
Other mechanisms include the Quick Response Fund for first responder implementing agencies with ₱7.7 billion in 2025, and the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund where local government units are mandated by law to allocate at least five percent of their revenue to support disaster risk management activities. Aside from these, we have contingent credit lines for disaster response, such as the World Bank’s Fourth Disaster Risk Management Development Policy Loan.
We also recognize the importance of budgeting for sustainable investments in prevention and mitigation. As such, we institutionalized several initiatives, such as the Parametric Insurance, the National Indemnity Insurance Program to protect the government's assets against various disasters, our partnership with the World Bank for Technical Assistance to develop a National-level Risk-Based Budgeting Framework, and the Public Financial Management (PFM) Reforms Roadmap 2024-2028 aimed at modernizing our PFM systems, including designing and implementing classification and tagging systems for disaster-related programs and projects for tracking the DRRM budget and the spending performance of agencies.
Beyond budget, the APMCDRR experience has taught us the value of knowledge sharing and collaboration, where every measure to reduce disaster risks today will save lives, protect livelihoods, and safeguard development gains tomorrow. With our country’s vulnerability to disasters, building the country’s resilience would indeed require a whole-of-society approach. Hence, together, let us build a Bagong Pilipinas where communities thrive even in the face of adversity.
(Amenah F. Pangandaman is the Secretary of the Department of Budget and Management.)