“Pa-siyam”: Super Typhoon Yolanda 9 years later and lessons (yet to be) learned

In 2013, the 19th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP19) began with heartfelt prayers to communities in the Philippines that had just been hit by Yolanda, one of the strongest typhoons on record. World leaders and climate activists urged governments to urgently address the escalating climate crisis.

This year, the anniversary of Yolanda takes place as world leaders are convening for the 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, once again opening the international stage to discuss pressing climate issues that leave communities at risk of suffering losses and damages due to extreme weather events.

Displaced, resettled, and perpetually precarious

Just a couple weeks before this year’s commemoration, Tacloban City declared a cholera outbreak with at least 192 cases recorded in the city. Most of the cases were found in Barangay 106, where the source has been traced to a polluted creek and the water processing plant. Barangay 106 is home to resettlement housing projects for those displaced by Yolanda, along with other villages where permanent housing units were constructed in the city.

When the storm struck in 2013, Tacloban was one of the hardest hit areas in the typhoon path. Ninety percent of the city was destroyed, with massive loss of lives and displacement recorded. In the wake of the disaster, the city government initiated large-scale resettlement, moving families from high-risk coastal areas to 40 km north of the city center. Disaster-affected residents, including former informal settlers, were given new permanent housing. Yet, for many, lives and livelihoods remain bleak.

Access to clean water, for instance, remains a challenge. Earlier this year, during a human rights monitoring visit to four permanent shelter areas in Tacloban, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) recorded water meters not installed per household, and limited supply of continuous water in the housing units.

The relocation from coastal settlements up north has also moved many people further away from their original sources of income and work. Housing units are also often too small, leading better off families to self-construct extension spaces, thereby exposing neighboring units to structural risks. The COVID-19 pandemic also further exacerbated the precarious living conditions of displaced families. These are just few of the new and continued challenges faced by communities displaced by Yolanda; persistent issues of poverty and safety and security remain present.

Rights of the relocated and roles of duty-bearers

A survey of 311 displaced households conducted by the CHR and the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) in 2020 found that needs and human rights of displaced people remain unmet and unfulfilled, particularly safety, security, and freedom of movement; adequate standard of living; employment and livelihoods; housing, land, and property; and participation in public affairs. Thirty percent of the respondents found their livelihoods to have worsened, and half found water quality and access to be poor. Further, less than 40% of the households hold ownership documentation for their housing units, with many still insecure about their tenure rights and status.

Evidently, disaster-induced displacement and relocation compromise basic human rights of affected people. Durable solutions are needed to ensure internally displaced persons (IDPs) can fully enjoy their rights while no longer having protection or assistance needs due to displacement. This includes, among others, effective provisioning of basic services for affected families, ensuring land titles and tenure security, and inclusion of displaced people in decision-making.

The human rights issues surrounding displacement in Tacloban City are reflections of serious loopholes in the current legal frameworks. The Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act (RA 10121) must be revised to address human rights issues, particularly in relation to approaching and responding to disaster displacement and institutionalizing an accountability arrangement for duty bearers.

A human rights-based legislation or policy at the national and local levels on internal displacement could also provide the framework for an inclusive, participatory, and more accountable response to evacuation, recovery, and resettlement.

A finance facility for the most vulnerable

Nine years after its landfall in a nation frequented by an average of 20 disasters each year, Yolanda’s impacts are still felt and lived every day. Its prolonged implications on human rights and livelihoods are examples of losses and damages that communities are experiencing due to climate variability and extreme events.

Financial resources must extend beyond disaster relief and cater to the needs of those most vulnerable, and address not only economic but also cultural, psychological, livelihood, and other non-economic loss and damage, such as those associated with displacement and resettlement.

Indeed, Yolanda was part of the push that led to the creation of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage at COP19. By COP26, the quest for a dedicated fund, however, has not materialized. If we are to learn from the tragic event and the sustained devastation that followed, and uphold the principles of climate justice, a finance facility that puts vulnerable communities at its heart must be realized.

Reflecting on the Yolanda experience, Dean Antonio La Viña of the Manila Observatory believes that “rebuilding places and restoring lives after a major climate event does not happen automatically, without strategic interventions and sustainable finance. This is where a loss and damage finance facility is relevant and useful. While humanitarian aid after a disaster is needed, it is simply not delivered at the scale and urgency that would result in restitution and restore places and people back or even to a better place where they were not before the climate disaster hit them.”