With the recent calamities in the country, you will sometimes think how safe is Lipa City? The last typhoon that badly hit Lipa was Glenda (Rammasun) in 2014 which was one of the only two category 5 super typhoons on record in South China sea. Typhoon Glenda put Lipa in total power outage for about 2 weeks and connected to power outage was scarcity in water supply. The typhoon also put damaged to few properties and flooding in some areas of the city.
In general, Lipa can stand strong typhoons which can be attributed to the protection being provided by Mount Malarayat and Mount Maculot. Lipa is also on high elevation which helps the city not to be flooded heavily if having high density of waters from strong typhoons.
However, time is changing so quickly. Lipa became the most populated city in Batangas since 2015 and population at present may now be approximately close to 400K. Lipa being the most commercialized center in Batangas has attracted a lot of real estate developers and currently has the most number of subdivisions in Batangas. In the recent typhoons that visited the country, more areas got flooded in Lipa although not yet life threatening but is getting to be alarming.
The city government of Lipa should have an extensive ordinances that will cover the protection of Mount Malarayat, ecological balance in the city proper, sustainable drainage, sustainable subdivision framework, and other long term projects that will reduce the effect of climate change. Individuals, organizations, and business establishments should always think if their actions or waste products will have unfavorable effect in the environment. It's not yet too late to improve the health of our environment in Lipa.
photo: Arthur Chicky Mijeno
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