Saying that the 2013 Supertyphoon Yolanda (international name: Haiyan) left a “payload of lessons” on improving disaster response, President Marcos on Friday vowed to assume “all unfulfilled commitments” for rehabilitation and recovery of Yolanda-hit areas.
In a statement on the 11th anniversary of the supertyphoon that left over 6,300 dead, the President also reminded Filipinos that the powerful lessons from Yolanda “should not be lost with the passage of time.”
“All unfulfilled commitments made in the past for Yolanda rehabilitation are responsibilities we fully assume. Though no singular fault of anyone, many of these pledges remain unredeemed, and we shall see to it that what the state owed to impacted people and places will be satisfactorily settled,” the President said.
He went on: “Calamities are teaching moments, and every one that came after Yolanda delivered a payload of lessons that instructed us how to improve our response.”
Marcos pointed out that Filipinos “do not have the luxury of ignorance, inaction and complacency” as residents of the most disaster-prone country in the world.
“Thus, we must intensify our efforts to mitigate and adapt to the challenges of climate change and urgently abate our vulnerability to disasters,” he said.
He noted that the country has strengthened institutional bulwarks against calamities since Yolanda hit the country in 2013, and that Filipinos matched this with “increasing care and compassion for those affected.”
READ: 8 years after Supertyphoon Yolanda, pain lingers for survivors
One of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded in history, Yolanda slammed into Eastern Visayas on Nov. 8, 2013 and left 6,352 people dead.
“On this day, we remember the kindness of the international community, whose outpouring of support helped us heal fast. Their response reaffirmed a tenet civilization must uphold when one nation faces an emergency or an existential threat —that no man is an island, indeed,” Marcos said.
The President also stressed the importance of empowering communities and local governments as the “first line of defense against calamities.”