MANILA, Philippines ? Beyond just cutting carbon emissions, environment advocates are pushing an innovative, more aggressive response to climate change ? to build green communities that can withstand not only the next Ondoy but a series of Ondoys to come.

Such ambition fuels Design Against the Elements (DAtE) an international Philippine-led contest for architects that seeks the best environment-friendly design for urban housing that can be replicated here and abroad.

The goal is to build villages that are not only green but also disaster-resilient.

?We simply have to acknowledge the fact that climate change is happening and it will continue to happen. We have to be on survival mode,? said Illac Diaz, one of the leaders behind DAtE.

Diaz said people ?have to start looking for ways to adapt to climate change? instead of constantly relying on the usual rescue-relief-rehabilitation response by the government and private sector to calamities brought about by global warming.

"It's time that we accept the fact that it's not one Ondoy, it's (going to be) a series of Ondoys. More important, what will we do about the next Ondoy?" he said at a press briefing this month.

He said the government's knee-jerk response to global warming had always been to cut carbon emissions, but such focus would not really address the problem, considering that the Philippines' carbon emissions were not even large to begin with.

Although the Philippines is in the top 10 countries that will bear the brunt of climate change, ?we don't really contribute to carbon emissions, except on Edsa,? Diaz said in jest.

He also noted that while the average number of typhoons that hit the country has remained at 20, the strength and intensity of such cyclones have grown alarmingly, as shown by the storm Ondoy.

In only six hours, tropical storm Ondoy killed 464 people and damaged $240 million worth of properties in the early morning of Sept. 26, 2009.

DAtE, which was launched in Malacañang on March 5, intends ?to draw together the brightest and most innovative minds in the fields of sustainable design and urban planning to develop an integrated, environmentally sound, and disaster-resistant housing community in a tropical urban setting.?

Diaz said the winning design would be erected by Gawad Kalinga on a three-hectare property donated by the Taguig City government in Upper Bicutan. Depending on the design, Diaz said about 200 families could be housed per hectare.

He said the beneficiaries would come from destitute lake-side communities in Laguna.

Diaz said the contest would encourage the participating architects to design high-rise buildings rather than single-detached structures so that more families could be accommodated. He said about 3,000 architects here and abroad have agreed to take part in the endeavor.

Organizers said the designs must be of the kind that can be duplicated elsewhere for ?they shall serve as architectural solutions that shall be shared among local government units, designers and civil organizations to provide enhanced housing projects in the future.?

Diaz said the contest seeks to change the mentality of young architects and designers that ?they can no longer build the same way anymore.?

In line with the project, the National Geographic Channel held an Earth Day Run on April 18 at the SM Mall of Asia to collect funds for DAtE, which is organized by Climate Change Commission, Taguig City government, United Architects of the Philippines, My Shelter Foundation, and RP-UN White Helmets.

Jude Turcuato, director of Fox International Channels Territory, said: ?This is calling people to run for a solution, not for a cause... Unlike other cause-oriented runs, at the end of this Earth Day Run, we'll have something to show for it."

Turcuato said they were aiming to fire up feelings of pride among participants over being part of a global call to action.

?This is a Philippine-initiated project that is highly ambitious and at the same time pro-active and forward looking,? said Diaz.