Climate change supercharged late typhoon season in the Philippines

Climate change is making the Philippines more vulnerable to tropical storms, with rising temperatures already putting the country at nearly double the risk of deadly typhoons, scientists said in a report.

The unprecedented formation of four typhoons around the Philippines last month was made 70% more likely as a result of global temperature rises of 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit), researchers with the World Weather Attribution group said in a report.

Though scientists are cautious when it comes to attributing individual weather events to climate change, the consensus is that warmer oceans are intensifying rainfall and wind speeds across the globe.

“Climate change made the conditions that formed and fueled the typhoons nearly twice as likely,” the group said.

Hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated and more than 170 people killed during an unprecedented sequence of six tropical cyclones that landed in the country in October and November, raising concerns that storm activity was being turbocharged by higher sea surface temperatures.

“The storms were more likely to develop more strongly and reach the Philippines at a higher intensity than they otherwise would have,” said Ben Clarke, a weather researcher at Imperial College London, one of the report’s authors.

If temperatures rise to 2.6 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, those same storm conditions would be 40% more likely compared to now, he added.

An analysis published last month by U.S. weather researchers Climate Central said that hurricanes had intensified significantly as a result of record-breaking ocean warming, with wind speeds up by 18 miles per hour (29 kph).

Scientists believe warmer ocean temperatures are intensifying tropical storms by increasing the rate of evaporation. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in its latest assessment that there was “high confidence” that global warming would make storms more intense.

It is still unclear whether or not rising temperatures would extend the normal typhoon season or make tropical storms more frequent, but climate activists are concerned.

“We used to have what we called a hazard calendar – now it is just basically the whole year around,” said Afrhill Rances, the Philippines’ representative with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Scientific report - WNP Typhoons

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Source: Business World

Majority of Filipinos are satisfied with country’s infrastructure

More than half of Filipinos (52%) are satisfied with the country’s infrastructure, according to the Global Infrastructure Index 2024 released by Ipsos and Global Infrastructure Investor Association.

This result is higher than the 32-country global average of 40% and placed the Philippines as the fifth-most satisfied country in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Source: Business World

Infra spending surged in Sept, up 16.9%

State spending on infrastructure went up by 16.9% in September fueled by disbursements for finished transport projects, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.

In the latest National Government disbursement report, spending on infrastructure and other capital outlays rose by P19.8 billion to P137.1 billion in September from P117.3 billion in the same month last year.

Month on month, infrastructure spending went up by 26.24% from P108.6 billion in August.

The DBM attributed the uptick in September disbursement to the payment for completed road network and bridge programs of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

Higher disbursements were also made for various foreign-assisted projects of the Department of Transportation.

It also noted capital outlays for local counterpart requirements for implementing the Metro Manila Subway Project Phase 1, North-South Commuter Railway System, and the Davao Public Transport Modernization Project.

Funds were also used for the Department of National Defense’s (DND) Armed Forces of the Philippines modernization program, as well as the construction and repair of justice halls nationwide and implementation of the Department of Education’s computerization program.

In the January-to-September period, infrastructure spending rose by 14.6% to P982.4 billion from P857.6 billion in the same period in 2023.

“The robust spending growth for the period was largely credited… to infrastructure and other capital outlays with significant disbursements recorded in the DPWH for its banner infrastructure projects and the DND for its defense modernization projects,” the DBM said.

Overall infrastructure disbursements, which included transfers to local government units and subsidies to government-owned and -controlled corporations, went up by 12% to P1.14 trillion as of end-September.

“This was equivalent to 6.1% of GDP (gross domestic product) vis-a-vis 5.9% outturn for the same period last year and the 5.6% full-year target this year,” it said.

Philip Arnold “Randy” P. Tuaño, dean of the Ateneo School of Government, said the increase in infrastructure spending is likely to be sustained in the short term.

“(The increase was) due to a significant balance from various budget sources that remain available for release, and the prioritization of large-scale transport projects such as the Metro Manila Subway,” Mr. Tuaño said in an e-mail over the weekend.

He also expects a surge in infrastructure spending given that the 2025 midterm election is five months away.

“It should first be noted that infrastructure spending year on year had increased, and this will further increase going into the 2025 national budget,” Terry L. Ridon, a public investment analyst and convenor of think tank InfraWatch PH, said in a Viber message. “This is the underlying reason for spending improvements this year.”

The government’s infrastructure program for this year is set at P1.472 trillion, equivalent to 5.6% of GDP.

Mr. Ridon urged infrastructure agencies to improve absorptive capacity “particularly as 2025 is an election year in which the law mandates a suspension of project implementation for a specific period of time.”

“The challenges are that the absorption and burn rate by our key agencies, especially in infrastructure and agriculture, have been quite low,” former National Economic and Development Authority Secretary Cielito F. Habito, said at a conference at the University of the Philippines School of Economics on Friday.

Mr. Habito raised that there have been “questionable priorities” on allocations and utilization in some sectors.

“We allocate a lot of budget but it turns out it can’t be spent within the period it was meant to be used,” he said in mixed English and Filipino.

“This is a very important issue in our fiscal policy in general. It’s not so much the fiscal policy, but the implementation of the fiscal policies in that sense.”

Mr. Habito also mentioned the propensity of DPWH to “reblock” roads, calling it a “seemingly misplaced allocation of the budgets.”

He also said the government needs more public-private partnership types of projects given the shortage of public funds.

Source: Business World