LGUs urged to submit proposals to get survival fund

MANILA, Philippines - Local government units can now access the P2-billion People’s Survival Fund, the Climate Change Commission said yesterday.

Climate Change Commissioner Emmanuel de Guzman said the survival fund would come from the commission.

LGUs can access the fund by submitting project proposals for strengthening their capacity to conduct science-based local development planning such as risk management, livelihood and ecosystem decline in their areas of jurisdiction.

“We want also to challenge the LGUs to plan not only for the limited period of three years based on the political term of the chief executive, but also to plan for the next five to ten years or longer,” De Guzman said in a press conference on integrating climate change adaptation and mitigation with the K to 12 curriculum held in Legazpi City.

“Our challenge is to do our best to provide the tools needed by the LGUs to come up as soon as possible with their plans to access the People’s Survival Fund but also to finance their activities with the many climate financing schemes that we are expecting,” he added.

He also reiterated that the long-term goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the position of the Philippines in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris, France last year.