Adapt, Adjust, or… Dome-Shaped Buildings In Disaster-Prone Areas

Climate Change is real and this is felt in the number of typhoons and storms which hit the country every year with increasing intensity and destructiveness.

There is no other option for us but to adapt, adjust and mitigate the devastating effects or else we will end up picking up the pieces or burying the dead after every typhoon.

There are three actions which we have to implement with urgency.

First, a national program to plant native trees, fruit trees and bamboos in the deforested mountains of the country must be implemented through a law that would require every Filipino and every agency of government to participate.

Second, the national land use plan must be passed and implemented which would define areas for habitation, agricultural production and total environmental protection.

The mindset of building houses and developing subdivisions in plains and low-lying areas must be changed in the face of our experiences in floodings after the storms.

Third, there must be a radical shift in the architectural design of government buildings and even private structures and homes in areas located in the path of the typhoons.

In 2018, when I was Secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA), I approved the funding and construction of the monolithic dome to serve as a grains and seeds warehouse in the DA Experimental Station in Iguig town Cagayan Province.

Designed by German engineers, the first monolithic dome constructed by a Filipino company with Polish engineers as consultants and could withstand Typhoon Signal 5.

Costing P12-M and constructed in record time, the first monolithic dome and six other smaller versions constructed in Region 2 withstood the strongest typhoons since their completion.

When I inaugurated the first monolithic dome in Iguig town on Marh 28, 2019, the temperature outside when I arrived at 3:30 p.m. was a scorching 36C degrees but it was only 21C inside the Monolithic Dome.

The Polish engineers told me that the dome has insulators which deflect the heat of the sun and keep the interior temperature at levels ideal for grains storage.

Yesterday, I called up DA Cagayan Valley Director Narciso Edillo and asked him for updates on the Iguig Monolithic Dome and the six other units built afterwards.

He said the Monolithic Domes had withstood the typhoons which hit the region since 2019.

The Monolithic Dome Program was supposed to be expanded to other typhoon-prone regions of Eastern and Western Visayas, Bicol, Southern Tagalog including Mindoro, Central Luzon, Ilocos and Cordillera Regions.

Unfortunately, following my publicized clash with the Economic Managers over the Rice Tariffication Law and other pro-importation policies, I resigned three months later and the project did not progress.

Given the experience we had with the destruction wrought by Typhoon Odette, I believe that the Monolithic Dome Program should be embraced by the national governent, including the local government units, in designing the new buildings which would be built after the destruction.

This move, including the two other recommendations on the urgent planting of trees and bamboos and the implementation of a science-based land use plan, could help us adapt and adjust to the realities of Climate Change.

As often repeated in the social media following Typhoon Odette’s destructive rampage, we will survive this but we have to act fast, adapt and adjust.

Bagyo lang yan, Pilipino Tayo!

#NeverStopDreaming!

#NeverStopBelieving!

#KungGustoMaramingParaan!

(Photos of the Monolithic Dome in Iguig, Cagayan taken by Mayette Tudlas)