Last July 16, 1990, one of the hardest earthquakes to ever strike Luzon was seen in Baguio City at a magnitude of 7.7 that brought devastating effects to the city. Thus, it is vital to assess the exposure and vulnerability level of the city to better prepare and equip the city for the potential recurrence of this disaster. Firstly, the exposure level of Baguio City can be rated at 4 as it is an overpopulated city with a population of 366,358 and a population density of 6,370 km^2 (National Statistics Office of the Philippines, n.d). This means that a lot of people in the area may be directly impacted, such as injured or dead, when earthquakes hit that area. Moreover, Baguio City has 8,943 existing structures and only 14.6 percent has a building permit (Agoot, 2019), which is needed to ensure structural stability to withstand natural calamities. With the low number of structures with building permits, structural stability may not be assured for most of the buildings, which makes them susceptible to structural damage when a disaster strikes. Being the center of business and commerce, there are 19,590 business establishments—ranging from hotels, restaurants, and more—and agricultural land packed with 2000 metric tons of strawberry in La Trinidad in Baguio City. These large numbers can be susceptible to some income loss when an earthquake strikes again as well as damage to the business. While, in terms of its vulnerability level, it can be rated at a 2.5. Baguio invests a hefty amount of ₱115,022,395.20 on its public health services, which can allow the city to moderate and ensure the health and wellbeing of the citizens through offering free checkups and equipment for hospitals that may help the city adapt to the impact of future disasters. To add to that, the city is also capable of immediately mitigating the damage of the disaster better as it is equipped with one of the highest ratio of 23 doctors per 15,599 people in a population, as opposed to other cities in the areas of Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR), as well as 1 government hospital, 4 private hospitals with 2 infirmaries, 1,009 hospital beds, and 16 rural health units to allow consultations, laboratory tests, and treatments of the citizens. The poverty incidence—the proportion of people with per capita income/expenditure of less than the poverty threshold—of Benguet, where Baguio City is located, is also the lowest poverty incidence in the whole CAR region at 6% during 2018—which makes Baguio less susceptible to the negative effects of a potential disaster as fewer people are struggling financially, meaning that more people are able to pay for the damages brought by the disaster. However, several Baguio City officials, including the former mayor Reinaldo Bautista, was held liable by the Commission of Audit for giving out unauthorized allowances that were worth P63.72 million. This misuse of government money would make there would be less money used to invest in disaster risk management as well as other practices in preparation for potential disasters or the reoccurrence of an earthquake. There has also been a drop in students enrolled in Baguio City schools and the LGU was not able to immediately act accordingly to this drop. This school year, 2021-2022, it was found that there were 508 drop-outs, 519 repeaters, and 493 who did not enroll due to various reasons such as the pandemic, lack of assistance, financial limitation, loss of interest, and more. To add to that, the CAR, with a literacy rate of 94.9%, ranked 13 out of the 16 regions surveyed, with the region having the highest literacy rate ranking first. This means that compared to other regions, it has a low literacy rate. These educational hindrances could negatively affect how the inhabitants there manage the long-term impacts of disasters, especially toward climate change, as they may not be as knowledgeable on how to handle disasters and their prolonged effects without proper education and research on them.

MOST VULNERABLE BARANGAYS

EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT PLAN

SAFETY TIPS AND HOTLINES