A SCIENTIST group at the weekend flagged the massive cut under the Congress-approved 2025 national budget for an early warning system project designed to prepare communities for landslides, which it said is a step in the wrong direction as the country bears the brunt of the worsening climate.
The cut, which would see the Dynaslope project’s budget slashed to P25.5 million next year from P41.1 million in 2024, has serious consequences for landslide-prone communities, AGHAM said in a statement.
“Cutting its budget now — when typhoons are becoming stronger and more frequent — is a step in the wrong direction, risking lives and erasing hard-won progress in disaster resilience.”
AGHAM said if the cut pushes through, a third or 19 of the project’s employees are at risk of losing their jobs next year.
This will affect scientists, researchers and other personnel working on the project, it said.
“Such move will waste highly valuable government resources—skilled disaster risk reduction management workers who have spent years honing their expertise through rigorous training and work experience, serving vulnerable communities.”
“These workers, already burdened by pay delays, unsafe working conditions, job insecurity, and the absence of rightful benefits, now face yet another threat to their livelihoods,” it added.
Dynaslope, a project at the Department of Science and Technology’s Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, has been providing community-based early warning systems for landslides in the Philippines since 2008.
It monitors 52 landslide sites in 18 provinces and has developed hazard maps, risk assessments, a landslide monitoring system, and landslide early warning committees in partnership with local government units (LGUs).
In an open letter to Mr. Marcos dated Dec. 17, Dynaslope project staff including scientists, engineers and community development professionals said the 44% budget reduction will “deeply compromise a lifeline that protects Filipino lives and livelihoods from landslide disasters.”
They said professionals working for the project have “devoted years to honing their expertise through rigorous training, practice, and research.”
“This loss threatens to severely undermine our 24/7 landslide monitoring operations, downscale cutting-edge landslide research, and reduce critical capacity-building initiatives and technical assistance to communities — all of which vital for advancing disaster risk reduction strategies,” they said.
At the 2024 Gawad KALASAG awards, Mr. Marcos urged the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and other concerned agencies and LGUs “to continue working together to develop innovative solutions that are science-based, that are sustainable, and are future-ready, and establish clear guidelines for more effective disaster-response.”
Dynaslope staff said the project “is a prime example of such innovation, pioneering a community-based early warning system for landslides that has safeguarded 52 vulnerable communities across 24 provinces, protecting thousands of lives, public infrastructures, and empowering over 46 local government units to protect their people.”
Mr. Marcos in November said typhoons experienced by his country have been increasingly unpredictable due to the changing climate, and that his government doesn’t have a “template to follow” in terms of response.
“With your support, we can continue our work and expand our services to more environmentally fragile communities,” they added. “Without sufficient funding, life-saving efforts in the development of localized, cost-efficient landslide early warning technologies will be stalled, leaving more at risk,” Dynaslope workers said. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza