WITH the rainy season in the Philippines in its first gear, the country, which averages 20 typhoons a year, is once more on the waterfront facing rising sea level.
At the recent UN Security Council meeting on sea level rise and its implications for international peace and security, the Philippines, with a coastline of 36,289 kilometers, warned rising sea level threatens the stability of its boundaries.
The archipelago extends about 1,850 kilometers from north to south and almost 1,127 kilometers from east to west.
Ambassador and deputy permanent representative Ariel Rodelas Peñaranda, chargé d’affaires of the Philippine mission to the United Nations, told the Council the convergence of scientific opinion should guide UN member states in pursuing a common security agenda on sea level rise.
He said the Philippines, with more than half of its cities and communities along its coasts, is one of the most vulnerable to sea level rise due to anthropogenic or man-made climate change, has observed sea level rise at 60 centimeters, about three times that of the global average.
Peñaranda noted the impacts of sea level rise threaten all the elements that encompass the national security of the Philippines.
This country of 115 million from Batanes to Tawi Tawi is expected to experience more frequent and severe flooding as a result of sea level rise and more frequent cyclones.
According to the World Bank, its urban population is expected to account for 75 percent of the national population by 2035.
Available figures show the Philippines’ urban population for 2022 was 55,441,746, a 2.1 percent increase from 2021. Its urban population for 2021 was 54,302,696, a 2.1 percent increase from 2020.
Verily, the sovereignty and territorial integrity, the people’s well-being, core values and the way of life are being threatened especially in the coastal areas.
Given this scenario, disaster risk experts say poor urban planning and land use policies in Metro Manila, the country’s national capital region of 13 million, are factors that increase its vulnerability to climate change and deepen the inequalities among the population who live in the national capital and will affect their capacity to withstand shocks.
Engineering approaches, like the construction of sea walls and dikes, and flood control pumps, are necessary mitigations.
We agree with disaster risk experts who say the government should be taken to task if the communities these measures seek to protect were displaced or alienated in the process.
Nature-based solutions, like planting mangroves to protect coastlines, should complement these engineering strategies, said Rosalie Reyes, who leads the Coastal Sea Level Rise Project Philippines that studied the sea level changes in the country’s coasts.
The challenge of rising sea level is within eye range and must not be ignored.
