# 1. Introduction and Motivation

With 60% of its population living in coastal areas, and sensitivity to the El Niño phenomenon, the Philippines is one of the countries with a high propensity to be exposed to typhoons and one of the top 10 countries worldwide at risk for both climate change and disasters. Forecasts on climate change predict an increase in extreme rainfall in the Philippines, with the number of days with heavy rainfall (greater than 200mm) expected to increase with global warming by the year 2020 and 2050 (Cruz et al., 2017 Philippine Climate Change Assessment).

Understandably, given their disruptive and destructive power, typhoons attract a lot of attention in the Philippines. For instance, as recently as September 2018, T <mark>yphoon Mangkhut struck the Philippines after thousands of people evacuated their homes to dodge the 550-mile wide storm as it roared across the Pacific with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (New York Times, Sep 14, 2018).</mark><sup>1</sup> <mark>Fortunately, Ty</mark> phoon Mangkhut hit an area far less densely populated and, because of geography, much less vulnerable than Tacloban, a highly urbanized Philippine city devastated by Typhoon Haiyan, that struck in 2013 and resulted in 6000 deaths and <mark>destroyed so many homes across the central Philippines (Visayas) that it displaced nearly four million people.</mark> Empirical evidence has shown that natural disasters, such as typhoons and cyclones, play an important role in preventing people from moving out of poverty and in pulling back into poverty people who were able to escape poverty. Disaster risk response is therefore an important component of poverty reduction, especially in the context of recurrent shocks. With the increased focus on fragility, transient poverty, disaster risk management and crisis response, the components of an effective disaster risk management program of countries subject to frequent natural disasters are twofold: ensuring that (i) that there is immediate liquidity in the aftermath of the disaster and (ii) there is a set of scalable social protection programs in place leveraging on existing social protection systems to rapidly provide support to the exposed and vulnerable sections of the population immediately after a disaster.

Fortunately, the Philippines has one of the most advanced Social Protection systems in the East Asia Pacific region, designed to help poor households manage risk and shocks. Undergoing rapid and comprehensive social welfare reform since 2007, the Government of the Philippines has developed a number of national social protection programs that are accompanied by advanced information and delivery systems. Among them is the large conditional cash transfer program, called Pantawid Pamilya Pilipino Program (4Ps). Households receive cash grants if children stay in school and get regular health check-ups, have their growth monitored, and receive vaccines. Pregnant women must get pre-natal care, with their births attended to by professional health workers. Started in 2007, the government expanded the program to reach a total of 20 million Filipinos belonging to 4.4 million households in June 2018. The program benefits about 20% of the population, the majority of the nation’s poor.

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