Why resilience matters a lot in Disaster Preparedness (excerpt)
Resilience has become a “hot word” recently to describe the ability of the Filipinos to immediately bounce back from hardships and devastating events, move on and rebuild easily. Others tagged “Filipino resiliency” as a romanticized trait that has been used to excuse the government’s shortcomings in handling and preparing for natural hazards.
However, from the perspective of disaster preparedness, resilience can be the people’s strongest trait. “Being resilient doesn’t mean ignoring the roots of vulnerabilities. It is the goal of resilience to improve disaster mitigation.” says Academician Alfredo Mahar Lagmay, NRCP Member of the NRCP Earth and Space Sciences Division, and Professor at the UP National Institute of Geological Studies. With the onslaught of the COVID pandemic and threats of climate change, communities will have to adapt even more to stressful environmental conditions, and investing on resilience is a foremost important measure. Lagmay pointed out that the government should focus on enhancing the resilience of its communities for better disaster planning and hazard management which would allow reducing the disaster impacts and losses.
Resilience is defined as the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events. Disaster resilience is determined by the degree to which individuals, communities and public and private organizations are capable of organizing themselves to learn from past disasters and reduce their risks to future ones.
“Better anticipation of hazards and disasters could lead to better planning and enhanced resilience,” added Lagmay.
Fresco, M.C. (30 March 2021).WHY RESILIENCE MATTERS A LOT IN DISASTER PREPAREDNESS.
Question:
How does the value of Filipino resilience help address the environmental problems in the community?
Which sentence from the text best supports your claim?
How does resilience help form and sustain the civilizations of the Filipinos?
