TUGUEGARAO CITY—The two-day Summit on Climate Change, Agriculture, Environment and Infrastructure that just ended at the Hotel Carmelita here should help Cagayan province “build back better” from the damages wrought by Typhoon “Lawin” and make it more disaster resilient.
Gov. Manuel N. Mamba said the summit’s focus on educating the public on the effects of climate change on agriculture and the potential damages to infrastructure will help Cagayan plan its programs better.
The country’s northernmost mainland province is a major rice and corn producer, but has always been on the losing end every time floods and disasters hit the province, Mamba stressed.
The province lost about P5 billion worth of crops and P3 billion in damaged infrastructure when “Lawin” (international name “Haima”) struck Cagayan on Oct. 19, 2016, the governor said.
Mamba recalled that 25,000 houses were “totally blown away” and 100,000 were partially destroyed, which prompted the first-ever provincial Climate Change Summit.
It mirrored a summit in August last year on agriculture and climate change held in Palo, Leyte, ground zero of Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (“Haiyan”) in 2013.
PMFTC Inc., an affiliate of tobacco firm Phillip Morris International, and the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines Inc. supported the two-day Summit.
PMFTC External Affairs Director Bayen Elero Tinga said the company has helped the province’s agriculture programs to improve the lives of Cagayano farmers.
The firm has evolved over the past few years “from being solely a cigarette manufacturer into an agricultural company, with thousands of directly and indirectly contracted farmers,” Tinga said.
“With the assumption into power by the Duterte administration. The agriculture sector is given a new lease in life, and we are excited of the prospects ahead for all of us in this sector,” she added.
While the summit intends to educate the public on climate change and its adverse effects on agriculture, it also tackled other issues concerning the environment and climate change-resilient infrastructure, Tinga said.
“Our end goal is to come up with solid action plans that will make the province better prepared in handling calamities similar to super typhoon ‘Lawin.’ The participants will also be able to increase their awareness on disaster preparedness and risk reduction management,” she added.
The summit also saw officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, farmer leaders, non-government organizations, the private sector led by the Filipino-Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Cagayan, and disaster relief and rescue operations workers.
