Note: Meeting: “Risk Reduction Hub” on the margins of the High-Level Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction – Specifically on Accelerating Action for Gender Responsive Disaster Risk Reduction (These events are for governments, experts, and stakeholders, including and beyond traditional disaster risk reduction actors, to discuss how the calls to action contained in the Political Declaration can be taken forward and to offer concrete solutions that can be the genesis of initiatives or coalitions emanating from the MTR SF.)

How have disasters impacted gender inequality in the Philippines and what success have you had in addressing this inequalities through law, policy and DRR issues? What issues remain to be tackled?

SENR: It is very early days for us in the Philippines in terms of beginning to collect sex and age, this aggregated data, but we started in 2020 and therefore there are challenges that are still needed to be met but let me start by saying, in our country, we recognize the intersectionality of gender-based vulnerability, the different social roles and identities that women and different genders actually assume in society compound vulnerability, but also create opportunities for solutions that are multi-dimensional. Therefore if we address this intersectionality, we can actually address the different dimensions of vulnerability as well.

For inequality of women in the Philippines, we realize of course that loss of livelihood, shelter, access to safe waters, sanitation, education, as well as capital for livelihoods continuing post-recovery, these are all part of the impacts that disasters have had on women in the country. Social and physical isolation are also impacted when disasters happen and therefore we need to address both mental health as well as specific issues that related to the age and the particular social status of women that are affected by disasters. Let me just say that we’re about almost 50% all women and 50% male, however, we do have a situation in the Philippines where almost 1.8 million of our people work abroad, overseas, and of that 1.8 million, 60% are actually women.

Therefore, their households and they themselves are exposed not just to hazards that occur within the Philippines but also in other countries wherein which they actually work. That means that incomes, as well as the social impacts of those disasters that may in fact happen while they are abroad actually resonate with the families in the Philippines.

In terms of legal and policy situation in the Philippines, we actually have a magna carta for women that was drafted and approved in 2009, and that basically guarantees that women and marginalized sector actually must have access to food security, good shelter, access to credit, social services and protection, and that’s basically the holistic approach to actually protection of women, including maintaining their cultural identity and their role in the peace and conflict resolution process that’s actually part of the country’s formation.

In the 2010 Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction Management Law, there is also specific recognition and highlights the institutionalization analysis in the work that we’re doing in disaster risk reduction management and the integration of gender and social inclusion in all disaster management policies that we actually have.

Those 2 basic laws are vital in terms of recognizing the vulnerability of women, but also investing in their resilience as well. We do have National Development Plans, both the Ambition 2040 which is the previous PH Development Plan and the current PH Development Plan actually emphasize the leadership role of women as active change agents in social transformation, and therefore investing in their resilience and protection is among the key features of the PH Development Plan. We also have a comprehensive emerging program for children that actually recognizes both women, young girls and of course young male children as well, and the protection of pregnant and child-bearing age women specifically in the post-disaster situation.

I should say that in every disaster situation in the country, we have instances of human trafficking particularly of young women and girls. And this is something we need to address specifically, I know that we are not unique in this sense.

Finally, in financing gender inclusive development, we are mandated by law to actually budget at least 5% of our department’s budget toward gender responsive activities. We do need to actually identify and mainstream a monitoring system for expensing these types of activities and therefore that is reported nationally as well.

Let me just say that there are some lessons that we have learned and in fact the challenges that we have faced in terms of collecting sex and age disaggregated data continue to persist, however, we do have some best practices. The NEDA actually has gender DRR checklist for all government programs and projects, the NDRRMC has actually adopted a resolution based on the requirements of the Sendai Framework to actually implement the collection of sex disaggregated data and gender-related information in the reporting. And finally I would say, there are numerous policies that have actually been inacted in order to support the GAD issue in our country, however, it is early days and we do need to invest both in the transdisciplinary understanding of vulnerability particularly gender-based vulnerability, and the multiple roles that women play in order for us to understand how risk may cascade through those roles and address the vulnerability once and for all.