TABACO CITY — Extreme rains once thought rare are now striking the Philippines with alarming frequency, overwhelming flood defenses and exposing gaps in local planning. Unless resilience is built into all aspects of governance, the country will remain vulnerable, disaster scientist Dr. Alfredo Mahar Lagmay warned.
Lagmay, executive director of the UP Resilience Institute and former head of Project NOAH, delivered the warning during a media seminar on September 23 at Gamboa’s Orchard in Malilipot, Albay. The event, organized by the Department of Agriculture Region V and PAJ Bicol, Inc., gathered journalists from Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, and Albay.
“Resiliency must be part of LGU plans across sectors… and those plans have to be cognizant of climate change,” Lagmay said. “It’s not just about evacuation centers but about how we plan education, tourism, agriculture, forestry, and other sectors.”
Climate signals turning real
Lagmay said warnings issued by climate scientists a decade or two ago—of stronger rains, stronger typhoons, and bigger floods—are now being borne out across the country.
He cited Typhoon Reming in 2006, which unleashed deadly lahars from Mayon Volcano that buried parts of Padang, Daraga, Camalig, and Guinobatan. Infrastructure broke upstream, diverting boulders and mudflows into areas residents thought were safe.
More recently, a sudden cloudburst over UP Diliman dumped 135 millimeters of rain in just one hour, flooding UP, Ateneo, and Miriam College. By comparison, Ondoy’s peak in 2009 reached 92 mm/hour. “Drainage systems are simply not designed for that kind of rainfall intensity,” he said.
In Bicol, Severe Tropical Storm Kristine on October 22, 2024 produced 528.5 mm in Naga and 431 mm in Legazpi in 24 hours, according to PAGASA. An independent gauge measured an even higher 737.9 mm—far above the 100-year benchmark of 507.4 mm.
“That means it’s rarer than a 100-year event,” Lagmay said. “People who lived 30 years without floods were caught off guard because the event outstripped historical experience.”
Limits of flood control
Lagmay cautioned that dikes and other flood-control structures, while essential, cannot withstand every scenario.
“Structures are built only up to a certain level. When rains bigger than the 100-year rate of return come, there will be problems,” he explained.
He added that flood planning must be basin-wide. “Water flows across political boundaries. If LGUs act in isolation, flood structures in one town can simply transfer the problem downstream,” he said.
High risk, mixed results
Lagmay noted that risk = hazard × exposure × vulnerability, and the Philippines scores high in all three. Its geography places it in the path of typhoons, settlements in floodplains increase exposure, and poverty deepens vulnerability.
Still, there has been progress. Annual fatalities from severe weather have fallen from more than 1,000 to about 250, which Lagmay credits to stronger preparedness. “That’s roughly a thousand lives saved annually,” he said.
But economic losses remain unchanged, averaging Php 50 billion a year. “You can evacuate people, but not property,” he added. “Without long-term land-use planning, damages will keep piling up.”
Food and farms on the frontlines
Lagmay linked disaster resilience directly to food security. Hazard maps, he said, should guide farm and settlement relocation away from flood corridors, while irrigation investments can help sustain food production in safer zones.
“Many places are sitting ducks,” he warned. “The likelihood of surprise is increasing. We have to anticipate bigger events than our historical experience. If we don’t prepare and we’re surprised, that’s when disasters strike.”
For Lagmay, resilience is not a side issue but the foundation of local governance. From classrooms to farmlands, floodplains to forests, he said, every plan must now be written with extreme weather in mind.
