Philippines: Communications with Communities (CwC) Response & Preparedness

When typhoon Hagupit made series of land falls in various regions from6th to 8th of December, there were few casualties despite some heavy damages to infrastructures or properties.

Though the impact of Hagupit was not as strong as Haiyan in terms of strength and damages, highly vulnerable people and those communities at risks were evacuated days earlier. Also, both the national and local (from regional, provincial, municipal and barangay) preparedness response somehow managed to be more organized and coordinated this time.

The Haiyan experience last year taught the disaster-prone country not only the invaluable lesson for the government agencies, humanitarian actors and affected communities to expect more of Haiyan-type typhoon or the so called new normal --- but also to invest more on preparedness and work hard to achieve zero casualties as much as possible.