MANILA, Philippines—Images of devastation spawned by tropical storm “Ondoy” in Metro Manila last year filled Jerry Velasquez with memories of his childhood in Malabon.

Almost every year, the fish port city, one of the lowest lying areas in Metro Manila, battles seasonal floods. Homes are destroyed, power supply is interrupted, roads are clogged and residents in the most flood-prone areas are displaced for days, sometimes weeks.

“I saw our town, our home, our neighbors’ homes ravaged by floods,” said Jerry. Early on, he knew he wanted to be an engineer.

Jerry, 43, did become an engineer. But he’s not your usual structure builder. Based in Thailand as a regional coordinator for the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR), Jerry is building communities resilient to disasters.

The UNISDR aims to decrease human, social, economic, and environmental losses due to natural calamities.

A holistic scientist

Jerry heads the UNISDR regional office for Asia and the Pacific, which supports continuing disaster risk-reducing actions of people, governments, and international organizations. His office covers 27 countries and 16 territories—from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan to Australia, Samoa, and the Marshall Islands.

He is a physical scientist who builds environmental law and development policies with an eye on “vulnerability”—man’s precarious relationship with nature as well as with the cultural and social forces around him.

“I’m a registered civil engineer, but the last structure I built was a pigeon cage I did when I was in high school. The joke among my friends is that I haven’t even used my engineering license to build a doghouse,” he quipped.

Jerry concerns himself with more than just physical structures in disaster-prone areas.

“Up until recently, the focus has been on the physical aspects of vulnerability. For instance, the structures we build. Are they strong? Are they located in a flood-prone area? But we rarely look into the people who live in these structures—Are they sick? Do they have jobs? Do they have insurance?

“We can usually calculate disaster risk based on the hazards and the physical aspects of vulnerability, but we haven’t been able to include the social aspects because these are so hard to quantify.”

He believes that disaster risk reduction should be integral to development, environmental protection, and humanitarian action.

Jerry counts as one of his achievements the agency’s technical inputs to the Philippines’ Climate Change Act of 2009. The act is the first climate change legislation in the region which fully incorporates disaster risk reduction, he said.

Video games for kids

Disaster information and education are also his forte.

Before receiving his Ph.D from Nagoya University in Japan, where he majored in environmental studies and water resources as a Japanese government scholar, Jerry’s dissertation was named Outstanding Thesis by the Japanese Association of Water Resources in 1994. It dealt with how pollution travels underground and how deforestation affects the spread of pollution.

He further developed his work on how nature behaves into a computer-based education module for children called “Quake Busters,” an interactive disaster awareness program. He went on to develop a simulation game “Pangaea,” where players can run a country and deal with environmental issues based on real data. He has also developed electronic course modules on water and biosafety.

Jerry has likewise authored books, the last being “Innovative Communities: People Centered Approaches for Environmental Management in Asia and the Pacific,” which was published in 2005. The book discusses interesting findings, like promoting animal conservation through hunting in Tibet and even suggests that blind 80-year-old men be tapped as game rangers in Pakistan.

In the Philippines, Jerry, together with the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), designed a calendar with visual information which was distributed in schools after the Mindoro earthquake in 2004.

“I also joined Phivolcs in a national roving seminar series on disaster awareness,” added Jerry.

All around the world

In his many years of searching for answers to questions that have long riddled the planet, Jerry has come to a conclusion which he hopes more people would pay attention to: “The planet has no problem by itself or with us. It is us who make problems for the planet. A hazard like a river will not become a flood if we don’t build our homes near it. This implies choices or lack of control over choices.

“I wanted to know why these happen (why people make the choices they do) and what can be done about them,” he added.

Jerry has worked for the United Nations Center for Regional Development, the United Nations University, the Global Environment Information Center, the United Nations Environment Program Division of Global Environment Facility Coordination, and the United Nations Environment Program Division of Environmental Law and Conventions.

He has also shared his expertise on environmental governance issues and social vulnerability with officials and organizations in Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Palau, Cook Islands, Bhutan, India, South Africa, Mexico, Colombia, and the United States.

One million safe schools

Recently, Jerry launched a project named “One Million Safe Schools.” This project, an achievement he is proudest of, intends to make 58,000 schools and hospitals safe in case a disaster strikes.

It was launched April 8 in the Philippines and is supported by the departments of health, education and defense (for the National Disaster Coordinating Council).

“Of course it’s just beginning and a lot more work has to be done, but I’m just so proud that the Philippines has made this commitment, leading the whole world in this issue, especially after the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile,” he said.

“We hope to start the inspection of schools in Metro Manila this year,” he added.

“Each year, we count the number of deaths and the economic toll due to disasters. It’s like clockwork. I’m hopeful that someday these numbers will go down. I’m hopeful that someday, if there is a large shaking of the ground, we will not have to dig our children and our loved ones out of the rubble.”

Stop corruption

In a recent study, Jerry and his team discovered that developing countries like the Philippines, which is among the top ten countries affected by climate-related disasters, have a tendency to acquire larger disaster risks.

He attributes this to bad governance, environmental decline, and poor rural livelihood.

“For instance,” he said, “we destroy more than what nature can replenish. We cut trees so fast that forests cannot retain slopes, so we get landslides and then mud clogs our rivers and causes floods—like during Ondoy. Also, our farmers are hanging by a thread. One devastating flood can destroy not just their crops but can also wipe out their entire savings, reducing them to dirt poverty.

“If we want to minimize disasters, we have to stop corruption and start governing better, start helping our farmers and fisherfolk more, and protecting our environment. Surely these are doable things. They are not beyond our control.

“My problem is how to convince decision-makers of the importance of these issues, and to make them realize that the solutions are actually doable. Also, to convince decision-makers that climate change adaptation is about development.”

Missing things Pinoy

Being able to live in different places and meet a lot of different people is the best part of working abroad, he said. UN staff are normally encouraged to move to other posts every five years.

The downside is “you’re bound to miss all things Pinoy,” he said.

Right now, he lives with his wife and two daughters in Bangkok. Drawing and painting are his hobbies.

Jerry intends to continue to do his part to help improve regional governance and help construct more disaster-ready development policies before he retires to his dream house—where else but by the sea.

By Karlo Jose R. Pineda