Man-made disaster damage hits P9.29B

Aerial view of the Oriental Mindoro coastlines affected by the oil spill. Presidential Communications Office PHOTO

DISASTERS caused by humans led to P9.29 billion in damage last year, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported on Wednesday, more than half of which — 53.1 percent or P4.93 billion — was due to an oil spill.

A tanker carrying 800,000 liters of oil sank off the coast of Oriental Mindoro in February. The resulting spill affected ecosystems and agricultural industries in the province and in neighboring Palawan, Antique and Batangas.

Minor “human-induced” or “technological” disasters, meanwhile — comprising armed conflicts, fires and similar events, accounted for the remaining P4.36 billion, of which 98.7 percent or P4.31 billion comprised infrastructure damage.

Natural disasters still caused significantly more damage last year, the PSA said. At P24.49 billion, this was 17.5 percent lower than the P29.68 billion recorded in 2023.

“Minor natural incidents” accounted for P1.24 billion, up 33.4 percent, of which P630 million comprised damage to infrastructure. Agriculture followed at P530 million.

The data was taken from the PSA’s Compendium of Philippine Environment Statistics, which is a compilation of environment and related socioeconomic information from various government agencies.

The PSA said that Component 4 of the compendium, on extreme events and disasters, “compiles statistics on the occurrence of extreme events and disasters, and their impacts on human well-being and the infrastructure of the human subsystem.”