Filipinos are all too familiar with the devastation that disasters wreak upon communities. Every year, with 20 typhoons entering the country on average, the people grapple with this recurring ordeal: cities submerged, crops destroyed, lives lost, water systems torn asunder. The Philippines, in fact, has been identified as the most disaster-prone country in the world by the World Risk Index 2023 due to its extremely high exposure, vulnerability, and lack of adaptive capacities to calamities.

As familiar as climate impacts are, the government’s response remains lackluster. Incompetent utilization of funds and insufficient development of resilient systems mar the state’s measures to preempt and mitigate the risks associated with these hazards.  

In the face of disasters and their ruinous repercussions, the Philippine government boasts its P543.4 billion allocation for climate change expenditures (CCE) for the 2024 proposed budget, an increase of around P100 billion from last year.  

However, a closer look at the budget reveals a lopsided allocation that counters a much-needed framework for inclusive adaptation. The climate budget departs from urgent climate-aligned development goals, according to Toby Monsod, a professor at the UP School of Economics.

Catastrophes, from disasters to insecurity in resources like food and water, will continue ravaging the country so long as the current misguided and fragmented framework underlies the government’s climate response. 

Skewed Constructs

Amid intensifying disasters, the state’s skewed budgetary priorities preclude a whole-of-government approach to adapting to climate impacts. 

The national climate budget increased by 165 percent from 2016 to 2023, primarily driven by tremendous augmentation of funds in the programs of the transportation department and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Yet CCEs have long been unevenly distributed, with two of seven strategic sectors in the National Climate Change Action Plan (NCCAP)–namely water sufficiency and sustainable energy—consistently accounting for around 80 percent of the budget (see sidebar 1). 

The CCE tagging of the bloated allocation for projects touted as part of the two sectors tends to be misleading, Monsod said in an interview with the Collegian. Most such projects are not dedicated to providing accessible water supply and sustainable energy sources per se. Since 2015, as Monsod observed, more than 90 percent of so-called water sufficiency and sustainable projects have fallen under DPWH’s flood control and road service programs.

A distorted policy, implementation, and targets are reflected in this disproportionate allocation, said Antonio La Viña, director of the Klima Center of the Manila Observatory and former undersecretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. While such projects are arguably integral to flood relief, concerns are raised about their opportunity cost and notoriety for botched implementation. 

Emphasis on DPWH’s costly risk-reduction projects minimized focus on measures for risk avoidance, per a 2022 study. It found that incomplete flood control projects in the Philippines—passed on regime after regime—contribute to a misleading sense of security and exacerbate harm to both lives and property. 

These projects continue to receive the lion’s share of the climate budget because they favor commercial interests, wrote IBON Foundation in its 2024 budget analysis. Political interventions, where public officials connive with contractors to bag exorbitant profits, were a major concern with the previous administration’s splurge on road projects, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism concluded in a 2018 investigation. It is equally concerning that, as of 2021, the DPWH has received the most corruption-related complaints since the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission was founded.

As the government leans more on contractors’ interests rather than environmental experts’ advice on its policies, the misguided pattern of climate budget allocation is only poised to continue in the coming years. Scientific guides on policies may be further set aside now that another consecutive budget cut is slated for environmental protection, which includes research and development funding (see sidebar 2). Such misprioritization stems from the overarching disarrayed framework for climate response, resulting in siloed efforts that fail to address the climate crisis comprehensively. 

Faltering Foundations

Since the NCCAP serves as the foundation of the country’s climate response, the government’s policies and measures—including international pledges—must concur with or complement this framework. One such international commitment is the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). 

Under the Paris Agreement, a breakthrough international climate treaty, governments must craft NDCs outlining their strategies for cutting emissions and adapting to climate change. The Philippine government’s NDC, however, is devoid of operational direction and disregards the country’s adaptive development goals as primarily advocated by the NCCAP. 

Since the Philippines is a developing nation with a negligible share in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, its pivotal role in pursuing global sustainability lies primarily in adaptation. Mitigation, in this case, is appraised as a function and byproduct of adaptation.  

While the NCCAP underscores measures for adaptative and resilient systems, the country’s NDC did not particularly reflect a similar aim. In 2021, then-President Rodrigo Duterte committed to a 75 percent reduction of GHG emissions, only 2.71 percent of which is the unconditional share guaranteed by the government by 2030. The effectiveness of the non-legally binding NDC hinges entirely on its alignment with the country’s national climate policies and programs.

The government’s pledge appears to be an empty declaration without sound basis. The document containing the country’s NDC failed to elucidate an action plan towards its realization, said Monsod. “What happened was they stated a very high emissions reduction target, and they described adaptation in motherhood statements.”

Projects tagged under mitigation, including those targeting emissions reduction, have never accounted for more than 20 percent of the CCE compared with adaptation-related expenditures. Some adaptation programs, as in agriculture and forestry, have also not been included in the unconditional share of the NDC despite their significant mitigation co-benefits. 

Besides such failure to incorporate the NDC into budgetary frameworks, Monsod pointed out in her 2022 study that it has tenuous strategic links to the NCCAP. It ultimately fails to create the impetus for concerted efforts that sustainable development demands of all sectors, not least government agencies. 

Withstanding the Deluge

The entire structure underpinning the Philippines’ climate response, evinced in its policies and allocations, must be anchored on adaptation within the context of sustainable development.

Scaling up adaptive measures for productive sectors, particularly agriculture, is crucial, said La Viña. Its activities, after all, are primarily dependent on climate and crucial to ensuring food security. At a time when a water crisis looms large, food security also requires, among other things, enhancing irrigation and strengthening communities’ capacities for producer-led water resources management.  

Charting this trajectory requires a framework that seeks climate-aligned development, Monsod suggested, which means pursuing activities and systems that can adapt to climate impacts. This outlook must frame all the country’s development schemes, including the Philippine Development Plan. 

Vietnam, for one, exemplified an all-encompassing climate approach reflected in its plans and pledges, including its NDC, with a realistic emissions reduction projected from the cumulative effects of its harmonized plans to build resilient systems for each economic sector. Its government has detailed projects for developing its energy, agriculture, forestry, waste management, and industrial processes following their climate needs.

Countries across the globe are urged to follow suit in the unified approach to climate change. As the Philippine delegation for the 28th Conference of the Parties commits to forward the agenda of resiliency and food security, the Philippines must concretize that thrust by recalibrating its NDC and aligning it with a coherent national climate action plan that addresses the adaptive needs of its citizens on all fronts. Once an integrated climate framework underpins our development, we can forge systems that can weather the deluge of devastation upon us. ●