Disasters

INCHEON, South Korea—Countries in Asia and the Pacific are more prone to natural disasters than those in other parts of the world, with people in the region four times more likely to be affected by natural catastrophe than those in Africa and 25 times more vulnerable than Europeans or North Americans, a United Nations report…

MANILA, Philippines — United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has cited the province of Albay as a model for good practices on disaster risk reduction for this Thurday’s commemoration of International Day for Disaster Reduction.

MANILA, Philippines – The government recently forged an agreement with some 40 private institutions to improve the country’s disaster response system.

THE Philippines loses as much as P145 billion a year from underinvestment in sanitation. The World Bank, in a 122-page report entitled “Sustaining Water for All in a Changing Climate,” said Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam lose about two percent of their annual GDP from underinvestment in sanitation.

BAGUIO CITY – The Center for Research and Epidemiology Disasters (CRED) here disclosed the Philippines ranked first worldwide in the most number of disasters that hit a country with 25.

WITH THE COMING OF THE rainy season, and images of the disaster caused by last year’s Tropical Storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng still fresh on the minds of many, the government agencies tasked with relief operations are on their toes.

The title of this column is not a prediction. It is a fact. Whether we like it or not, whatever we do now or tomorrow, the rains and the floods are coming.

CONCERNED that a disaster similar to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could hit the Philippines, government and private sector executives have begun the process of tightening safety and contingency measures in the petroleum industry. Ramon Oca, Energy secretary, said in a recent forum organized for this purpose that the Deepwater Horizon oil spill highlighted…

Metro Manila consumption activities are back to normal after being severely hit by the twin typhoons that hit late last year, leading global market intelligence company Synovate Inc. revealed in a study.

ASIAN countries have been battered by natural hazards but the commitment shared by each nation amplifies each government’s contributions to mitigate natural disasters and bring to fore the urgency of disaster preparedness.

President Gloria Arroyo has signed a law that will make mandatory the imposition of price ceiling on prime commodities during a state of calamity and will require state lending institutions to extend interest-free loans to citizens who are displaced by the calamity.

MANILA, Philippines – A government think tank worries that the series of natural and economic calamities that visited the country last year has led to an increase in poor children that it now estimates to be higher than the 2006 estimate of 12.8 million. It did not give any dimension of the rise.

MANILA, Philippines – Former Sen. Ralph Recto urged the Arroyo administration yesterday to negotiate a debt-for-disaster relief program with the country’s creditors to hasten the rehabilitation of areas devastated by “Ondoy” and “Pepeng.”

MANILA, Philippines – A seasoned diver of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) sacrificed his life yesterday afternoon while helping in the retrieval of the remains trapped inside the sunken ferry M/V Catalyn B.

MANILA, Philippines – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) had its hands full in a year littered with natural and man-made catastrophes.

The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) said a preliminary report submitted by corporations on their casualty losses due to the recent massive typhoons showed that they suffered damages to the tune of about P21 billion as of December 10.

MANILA, Philippines – The impact of typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” doused consumer confidence in the country as revealed by the grim economic outlook in the fourth quarter of the year and the first quarter of next year, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) deputy governor Diwa Guinigundo said.

Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng caused considerable damage and losses estimated at $4.4 billion, or 2.7 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), according to a report by a group of local and foreign experts. GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in a country in a year. Prepared by the team composed…

MANILA, Philippines – Due to recent calamities that hit the country and the coming Holiday season, Filipino workers in Canada and other countries have sent home more money to their families back home.

There is such a thing as a honeymoon phase in disaster response. Remember the overwhelming bayanihan spirit that swept the nation just after the onslaught of tropical storm Ondoy and after that, typhoons Pepeng and Santi? Images we saw on television and our own experiences, or those of people we actually knew, prompted Filipinos to…

The proportion of families who experienced involuntary hunger increased nationwide by 1.3 points—the equivalent of an additional 300,000 families—after the onslaught of Tropical Storms “Ondoy” and “Pepeng,” according to a special Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey.

The number of Filipinos who experienced hunger increased by about 300,000 after tropical storm Ondoy and Typhoon Pepeng hit the country, the Social Weather Stations (SWS) reported.

MANILA, Philippines – At the height of the global financial crisis last year, the government had distributed 32.6 million kilograms of rice worth P652 million to around half a million families through President Arroyo’s Food for School Program (FSP), the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) said yesterday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday expressed concern for the psychological well-being of more than a million people still living in flood waters weeks after three typhoons swept through the Philippines.

ANGELES CITY, Pampanga , Philippines  – The Department of Tourism is eyeing bright tourism prospects in North Philippines for the rest of the year despite calamities.

The twin typhoons that recently hit the Philippines were the costliest storms recorded in more than six decades, cutting economic growth by 0.4 percentage point in the second half of the year, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board.

Heeding the call of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for all government agencies to provide assistance and relief to areas heavily affected by Typhoons “Ondoy” and “Pepeng”, the Depart of Labor and Employment (DOLE) created the DOLE Crisis Response Team to expedite the necessary interventions and assistance particularly the Ondoy-affected workers in the private sector and informal…

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippines ranks no. 12 among 200 countries most at risk from tropical cyclones, floods, earthquakes and landslides, United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) senior regional coordinator Jerry Velasquez disclosed yesterday.

MANILA, Philippines – The World Bank has put up a catastrophe bond which developing countries can tap as insurance and developed countries can invest in.

MANILA, Philippines—“Women and children are 14 times more likely to be victims of natural disasters than men in societies where gender inequalities exist,” United Nations Undersecretary General Noeleen Heyzer said at ongoing three-day Asia Pacific NGO Forum on Beijing+15.