LEGAZPI CITY, July 14 (PIA) – Local governments across the Philippines now have an option to hit many ‘targets’ with one ‘bullet’, the targets being the funds from the national government, the development partners, the international financial institutions as well as the Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) award and the single bullet, the tailored training workshop for the crafting of their respective Local Climate Change Action Plan (LCCAP)
While funding will be tapped from the Php 1-billion fund of the People’s Survival Fund (R.A. 10174), the mentoring and coaching for the crafting and implementation of the LCCAp will be provided by the Local Climate Change Adaptation for Development (LCCAD), the Local Government Academey (LGA) of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the City Government of Legazpi.
The move is is in compliance with the Climate Change Act based on the National Strategic Framework on Climate Change (NSFCC) of the Climate Change Commission, headed by President Benigno S. Aquino III, that calls for science and risk-based planning processes and results in which LGUs must consider the local assessment of climate change impacts on the most vulnerable communities and areas, the ecosystems and other resources within their territories.
DILG Secretary Manuel Roxas III, said “the agency and all allied national government agencies are working together to ensure that the Philippines is ready for the future”.
DILG, in particular, sees to it that relevant policies and programs are propagated, instilled and actually implemented among all local government units in the country.
DILG Undersecretary for Local Government, Austere A. Panadero, noted with satisfaction that out of 1,700 target LGUs and agencies, around 500 have already undergone such LCCAP training-workshops that enabled them to better mobilize people’s resources, wider access to local information, indigenous knowledge for community actions, measures and activities.
LGUs that have completed the LCCAP training-workshops are eligible to request for funding and tap the Php 1-billion fund of the People’s Survival Fund (R.A. 10174) as mandated to finance their proposed projects, programs and activities parallel to their Comprehensive Land Use and Development Plans and their respective LCCAPs.
Aside from said amount, their respective LCCAPs will also enable them to access other fund sources from development partners and international financial institutions, non government organizations (NGOs) and business organizations/communities through Public Private Partnership Initiatives (PPPIs) focused on climate change adaptation, disaster risk and vulnerability reduction and management.
LGA Executive Director Marivel C. Sacendoncillo meanwhile said, “LGUs shall be the frontine agencies in the formulation, planning and implementation of climate change action plans in their respective areas…(Climate Change Act or R.A. 9729, Sec. 14 of 2009) as amended by People’s Survival Fund Act or R.A. 10174 of 2012. The LCCAP of LGUs will be science-and risk-based, as its formulation will consider the assessment of climate change impacts on the most vulnerable communities and areas and the ecosystems and other resources within their territories.”
LGUs are made the fronliners in this programs since they are more familiar with the community adaptation-based approach and their importance to community livelihoods, environment and homes. They recognize the importance of Coastal, Health, Agriculture, Water, Forestry, Biodiversity, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure and in some cases, Mining (CHAWFBEEIM), as well as the other ecosystems as they can cope and continuously go building community resiliency.
It is clear to the global and national community that LGUs stand at the frontline of defense to climate change and disaster impacts. The island groups of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, as well as the individual islands, may face different challenges; possess varying views and perspectivves of their situation, and development directions and pace of growth. What they must do, however, is to always prepare resources and make them available when needed.
The multiple interrelated problems associated with climate change also differ for children, the youth, persons with disabilities, the elderly, women and men, rich and poor, indigenous peoples, communities and stakeholders. The most vulnerable are often the poorest of the poor.
Accomplishing close to half the target LGUs in the country with around 500 ‘LGU-graduates’ and a pioneer Barangay-level in the country (the 53 Barangays of Catarman, Northern Samar), LGUs urgently need to focus on the formulation of the barangay contingency and recovery plans (BRCP), conduct climate change sectoral vulnerability assessment and undertake other anticipatory adaptation measures following the ‘bottom-up’ approach to identify ‘no-regret’ options for re-defining and calibrating the local development planning processes.
The pioneer barangays were popularly supported and encouraged by their mayor, Francisco C. Rosales Jr and his frontliner Liga ng mga Barangay President Ruth Figueroa together with their action man, Jonathan Baldo, the MDRRMO-Catarman. Catarman has manifested an overwhelming enthusiasm towards LCCAP formulation as it is the only LGU in the Visayas to have completed LCCAP and BCRP.
Mayors Rosales and Rosal, commended each other, the former for his valuable support and the latter as the real champion and modelfor demonstrating the projects and programs in Legazpi City as the LCCAP capital in the Philippines, a thing that is replicable and implementable to other LGUs in the country.
“To capitalize on these strengths, LGUs must harmonize and maximize resources and promote PPPIs with identified community adaptation practitioners and local institutions or organizations for the purpose of achieving ‘horizontally and vertically aligned’ or cross-cutting climate change adaptation integration into local development planning processes such as BRCP at the meta level, annual investment plans (AIPs), comprehensive development plans (CDps) and comprehensive land use and development plans (CLUDPs) at the micro level, and ensure that such plans are integrated in provincial development investment plans (PDIPs), provincial physical framework and development plans (PPFDPs), and regional development plan (RDP) at the meso level and one common document the Philippine Development Plan (PDP) at the macro level,” Rangasa pointed out.
Seal of Good Local Governance
During the recent LCCAP formulation training-workshops, Mayor Rosal stressed another importance of the LCCAP document which is valuable inclusion to requirements for the Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) for disaster preparedness (requirement No. 16), together with Disaster plan, CLUP plans, Contingency plan and standard operating procedure.
Earlier, Rosal encouraged his fellow mayors and senior technical managers of the LGUs from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao to seriously undergo the LCCAP formulation training-workshop towards the attainment and achieving the goal of the millennium development and improving the human development index.
Rosal is ‘walking the talk’ in terms of CCA-DRVR implementation as he exemplifies Legazpi City’s strategies and mainstreaming measures against calamities and hazards by partnering and popularly supporting the LCCAD-spearheaded project, the LCCAP formulation training-workshops.
Common Barriers
LCCAD Executive Director and Resident Trainer Manuel ‘Nong’ C. Rangasa meanwhile cited that based on both the actual initial empirical and scientific findings of the series of LCCAP training workshops the following were discovered as common barriers to LCCAP preparation and implementation:
a) Limited knowledge and understanding of climate change and disaster risk reduction issues at provincial, city and municipal levels;
b) Limited transfer of knowledge and technology from involved agencies, particularly CCC, OCD, HLURB and NEDA;
c) Limited awareness of CCA, DRVR focal persons of provincial, city and municipal officers of the DILG;
d) Limited guidance, low human capacity & competency at local level to undertake this kind of adaptation planning;
e) Tendency to rely solely on available data by other LGUs and government agencies and institutions in formulating their respective LCCAP/etc.;
f) Lack of dynamism and dedication among LGUs that would be the CORE of creating resilient communities;
g) Inability to share knowledge and available data to replicate to their respective institutions and communities;
h) Limited financial resources and competing priorities among LGUs;
i) Lack of legislative framework that will guide all provinces, cities and municipalities to prepare and formulate a comprehensive local climate change adaptation plan (LCCAP)
j) Difficulty in mobilizing multi-stakeholders to participate in vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning and implementation activities;
k) Short political life of the Local Chief Executives (LCE) and decision makers;
l) Lack of support from the national government agency mandating and encouraging the LGUs to attend and to achieve Top to Bottom approach and vice versa; and
m) Untapped and immobilized PPP initiatives and resources.
Despite these barriers, the LGUs are striving their best to cope with and adapt to aspire for the national government funding supports and even those from the international financial institutions. The LGUs that have initially failed to come up with their respective LCCAPs are re-visiting (refresher) the training-workshop upon realizing its vital role in climate change adaptation and disaster risk and vulnerability reduction (CCA-DRVR).
“Aside from this, the LGUs are just beginning to realize that prevention policies are their first line of defense against disasters and, in particular, against human induced climate change impacts. As more people are expected to be affected in the future, increasing vulnerability of communities to disasters must be taken very seriously,” Rangasa explained while assuring that hopes rise with accomplishing their respective LCCAPs.
Rangasa also added that there are real fast-learners and to some extent, some are also finding difficulties coping up with the trainings, especially the LGUs that failed to send a complete technical team.
“Some of the earlier contingent-LGUs that have sent at least one or two representatives normally fail in other aspects of the CHAWFBEEIM vulnerability assessment and undertake anticipatory adaptation because the other vital sectors were not fully represented during the conduct of workshop phases of the technical writing sessions. Although they find it difficult during the initial stage of the workshop, no problem, it is part of the challenge of discovering and assessing their weaknesses which then results to their strengths and become their inspiration once their potentials for championing the cause of mainstreaming CCA and DRVR are ignited in the spatial local planning and policy-making processes,” he elaborated.
Despite these difficulties, Rangasa encouraged all LGUs to avail of the training-workshop and still hopes and believes in their dynamic abilities and competencies to adapt to, first, the trainings, and then the actual scenarios of climate change to adaptation and the disaster risk and vulnerability reduction management standardized by the user’s manual for LGUs, the published ‘power guidebook’ for the preparation of the stand-alone LCCAP document developed by LCCAD and the LGA-DILG.
The nature of this training-workshop is totally different from all the rest because LCCAP revisits, redefines, integrates, mainstreams, calibrates vertically and horizontally aligns cross-sectors to existing plans and activities such as executive legislative agenda, annual investment plan (AIP), comprehensive development plan (CDP) and comprehensive land use and development plan (CLUP) and entry points all opportunities to harmonize to maximize provincial development and investment plans (PDIPs) and provincial physical framework and development plans (PPFDPs).
All things considered, LCCAD concludes that “at this time, only Adaptation in the best option that can guarantee the attainment of a zero-casualty goal, provided that it is scientifically-based and appropriately implemented, hence, more effective, less expensive and more sustainable than short-term prevention measures like pre-emptive evacuation or reactive responses such as rescue and relief operations,” Rangasa said. (MAL/RMN-LCCAD/PIA5/Albay)
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