“Science keeps telling us the same story: when trees go, disasters grow”
THIS year, nature reminded us – again and again – that the Philippines sits on a fragile fault line between land and sea, between progress and peril.
Torrential rains swelled rivers overnight.
Hillsides gave way.
Coastal communities braced for storm surges that now feel less like once-in-a-generation events and more like seasonal rituals of fear.
In moments like these, memory matters. So does science.
That is why the House of Representatives’ proposal to allocate ₱1 billion for Project NOAH (Nationwide Operational Assessment of Hazards) in the 2026 national budget deserves both applause and urgency.
During the first-ever live-streamed bicameral conference hearing, House contingent head Rep. Mikaela Suansing put it plainly: the country needs Project NOAH back.
Launched in 2012 under the Department of Science and Technology, Project NOAH mapped flood-prone areas, landslide risks, and storm surges with a clarity that empowered local governments and saved lives.
It translated weather into warnings, topography into timelines, and data into decisions. Then, inexplicably, it was defunded in 2017 during the Duterte administration.
The cost of that absence has been measured not only in pesos, but in evacuations rushed, livelihoods lost, and lives placed at unnecessary risk.
But here is the deeper truth we often miss: Project NOAH is a mirror. It shows us where we are vulnerable. It does not, by itself, fix why we are vulnerable.
For that, we must look to the land.
Flood maps consistently point to denuded watersheds.
Landslide warnings trace back to bald hillsides.
Storm surge damage worsens where mangroves have vanished.
Science keeps telling us the same story: when trees go, disasters grow.
Re-funding Project NOAH is therefore only half the answer.
The other half is planting trees – millions of them – strategically, relentlessly, and scientifically:
- Trees in watersheds to slow runoff and recharge aquifers
- Trees on slopes to hold soil and prevent landslides
- Mangroves along coasts to blunt storm surges
- Urban trees to absorb rain, cool cities, and reduce flooding
In short, we must let data guide where we plant and let trees do what no algorithm can – restore balance to the land.
This year’s calamities were not “acts of God” alone. They were warnings.
Without Project NOAH, there was no help to read those warnings earlier and clearer.
A ₱1-billion investment in hazard mapping is wise.
An equally determined investment in nationwide reforestation is indispensable.
Together, they form a simple equation: science tells us where to act; trees make action last.
If we truly want fewer rescues and more resilience, fewer relief goods and more readiness, then the path forward is clear.
Bring back Project NOAH.
Plant trees everywhere it points.
That, in Everyman’s phrase, is how we stop predicting disasters – and start preventing them.
(The writer, president/chief executive officer of Media Touchstone Ventures, Inc. and president/executive director of the Million Trees Foundation Inc., a non-government outfit advocating tree-planting and environmental protection, is the official biographer of President Fidel V. Ramos.)
