Mia Alijah Sinoy Buniel
2021-09633-MN-0 | BSTM 1-1D
Reaction Paper | April 25, 2022
Resilient and Sustainable: Of Communities and Tourism Resiliency
The Philippines acknowledges itself for the resiliency of its people. Visited by several
typhoons and earthquakes per year, it is not surprising to hear of such a notion. In the webinar
conducted by International Finance Corporation and Anzcham Philippines, keynotes speakers
provided relevant information and insights regarding the disaster resiliency of the Philippines and
addressing this issue had been a particular area of interest. Emphasizing the significance of
resiliency for the country as a developing nation, and how industries can be affected by it,
especially tourism, I found it empowering that they mobilized various stakeholders to have an
avenue to make solutions, technologies, products, and methods that will contribute to change.
Doing so would open up new perspectives regarding this matter that could accelerate the
development of a solution since the information necessary to make valuable methods to
strengthen resiliency would be more accessible and available to more people.
The talk introduced two crucial pieces of information regarding resiliency: the Building
Resilience Index and the SENDAI Framework. These two gave importance to understanding the
hazards that can create risks, even those underlying ones, and then focus on addressing them
through disaster risk reduction and governance. Disaster can primarily affect the safety of the
people in the area it hit, then the habitability and industries located there. I see how community
involvement in planning disaster mitigation and management would drastically improve the
process of understanding the disaster risks. This could, in turn, help stakeholders to reduce the
risks disaster imposes on their health, safety, and livelihoods. If a community is equipped with the
necessary tools to prepare for a disaster, their capacity to bounce back and return to their regular
workflow would be faster. I agree how beneficial and strategic adopting such a technique would
be, especially in reducing the impact of the disaster towards economic loss.
I also see how positive one of the SENDAI framework priorities they mentioned which the
one that focuses on enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back
Better” in recovery and rehabilitation. They see the aftermath of the disaster as a chance to
improve a city, and therefore, make it more developed and resilient in the future. I think the “Build
Back Better” mantra could be powerful to be taken as an opportunity to design the place in an
inclusive and more beneficial for the thriving industries within a place, particularly useful in terms
of the tourism industry. Since they can now architect the location that would have more accessible
travel options across the community and strengthen its capacity for tourism through strategic and
data-driven decisions that would offer diversities of services, products, and attractions that the
visitors may enjoy. It is also important to point out how this could be more effective in improving
cities which does not see tourism as one of their major industries.
The first speaker, Arch. William Ti Jr., talked about the role of social architecture, the human
environment, and design activism in creating a way to reduce disaster risks and “actually tie up
everything” in a city. He discussed social architecture and its role in the process of creating the
designs they make. I think it is revolutionary to create social intimacy by making infrastructures
hyperlocal, convenient, open, and barrier-free. Since this design would essentially be nondiscriminatory, connecting people would be a lot easier. This factor had often been neglected it
creates a visible divide within the place, making it more difficult for the people to interact with each
other. I found this idea ingenious because by strengthening the social scale, the sense of
community would be stronger which would help make a more friendly, secure, and trusted
community. Besides making them more resilient through their social connection, this could also
help the community build its reputation among investors and visitors who would be more than
willing to explore such a place.
Furthermore, he also put emphasis on how the nurturing of the human environment would
create a positive impact on the place, as well as on their tourism. Landscapes and infrastructures
that foster communities would be more interesting for people to visit and explore. It would also be
interesting for them to take advantage of the location’s natural geography in developing an area
that embodies growth and financial opportunities. In line with this, I am astounded how the
speaker also advocated design activism, a way of designing those values producing a significant
social impact. I believe that it is easy to think of ways to design a city in a way that creates market
success, but deliberately doing so to contribute to attempting to solve its social problems, in
general, would be quite challenging. While such motivation requires a higher degree of
consciousness towards operations and conviction to reduce its negative impacts on the
community, this can “augment community capacity” for growth as it also attempts to make the
speed and scalability of the projects more efficient.
To further this discussion, the second speaker, Angelo Tan, mentioned that the Philippines
ranked 4th highest number of disaster events between 2000-2019 by the UNDRR & CRED in
2020 and 8th highest disaster risk by the World Risk Index 2021. I found it alarming how despite
our efforts to address disaster risks through the involvement of multiple organizations from the
private and public sectors, we still rank high in these assessments. Perhaps, aside from the
natural calamities, we have to endure because of the disaster-prone geographical context, the
unplanned urbanization that contributes to the exacerbation of environmental degradation can be
one of the main reasons why we rank high in the disaster risk index. It was also disappointing to
point out how even though we are a considered to be a low-emitting country in terms of pollution,
we are one of those nations that are intensely affected by its damages and effects, ranking 4th
most affected by climate change between 2000-2019 in the Global Climate Risk Index 2021. This
suggests that we should be more active in pursuing resiliency and sustainability, such that it would
open up more economic and social opportunities.
In conclusion, the webinar pushed me to think further about resiliency and how tourism
and other industry can be affected by it. In a way, this served as a reminder of how communities
can utilize their resiliency such as managing and creating opportunities to maximize their capacity
for growth and development. It is also rather impressive that by acknowledging and bringing
together the various sectors present within a community, we can create an environment that could
nurture thriving industries like tourism. I found it interesting to see how disaster-related
rehabilitations can be seen as a gateway to success, rather than reminders of past tragedies.
Undoubtedly, keeping an eye on tourism resiliency and sustainability would allow these disasterprone areas to flourish and find success.