‘Sense of urgency’ for Oro’s climate emergency status

PLACING Cagayan de Oro City under a ‘climate emergency’ status can help mobilize public funds and accelerate the implementation of programs for protecting the city’s environment and building its climate resiliency, a minority councilor said.

During the program ‘Ang Inyong Konseho Karon’ hosted by the City Information Office yesterday, Councilor Malvern Esparcia said public support for the city’s climate change action plan involves raising public awareness.

“If you talk to the masses, they would say where would we buy our food, what about our jobs, what about free schooling? What’s climate change to us?,” Esparcia said in Visayan.

Esparcia said the ‘climate change’ problem is for the most part lost to the public since it doesn’t rank high among their life priorities.

“The climate change issue is below their radar (there’s no sense of urgency). In the grassroots, the people would say ‘Give us food to eat, give us jobs, don’t talk to us about climate change,” Esparcia said in Visayan.

Still, Esparcia said the public simply cannot ignore the effects of climate change since it’s all around them.

“The government declared an El Niño alert, yet we experience rains anytime then a heatwave (in the afternoon)….that’s why we ask the media to help us educate the public (on how serious a problem climate change is),” Esparcia said.

Esparcia, a popular broadcast personality nicknamed ‘Bitok-Bitok’ before winning a City Council seat in last year’s elections, said they’ve been holding public hearings on his proposal to place Cagayan de Oro City under a state of ‘climate change emergency.’ Esparcia chairs the 20th City Council’s committee on climate change adaptation.

He said the memory of 2011’s tropical storm ‘Sendong’ (international name Washi) which claimed more than 1,000 lives in Cagayan de Oro, is a grim reminder of climate change’s effects.

“Remember, we don’t want a repeat of Sendong. We weren’t prepared then…based on data such severe storms usually occur every 100 years but now it’s every five years or three years,” Esparcia said.

Among the local governments in the country that declared a climate emergency were Makati City, Bacolod City, Cebu City, and Tolosa town, Leyte province.

“Fortunately the City Planning and Development Office already created a Local Climate Change Action Plan and (Mayor Rolando Uy’s) administration showed support for this and on this aspect, our priorities have aligned,” Esparcia said. (Stephen Capillas of City Information Office)