An international armed conflict (IAF) haunts the East and Southeast Asian regions due to territorial disputes. The issue shows no decline in the past two decades, despite the outward declarations of national leaders for stable and strong diplomatic relations in support of global sustainability and peace. Corpuz¹ imagined the future implications of the West Philippine Sea or South China Sea conflict on Philippine public health, including the disruption of health infrastructure and population displacement. The preceding analysis is significant for policy direction, disaster mitigation and contingency plans. However, it fails to consider the Philippines’ exposure, vulnerability and societal capacity to respond to natural hazards. Based on the 2023 World Risk Index by the Bündnis Entwicklung Hilft in partnership with the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict, the Philippines has remained the most at-risk country since 2011.² The ranking is unsettling given the overwhelming disasters that should have moved the government to improve and innovate its preventive measures and emergency response.

Natural hazards will be multiplier and aggregating variables of the effects of an IAF on Philippine public health, which could drive an extreme humanitarian crisis—a nation caught in the midst of two perils. Even with the Armed Forces of the Philippines Modernization Act, which aims to protect the Filipino people not only from armed threats but from the ill effects of life-threatening and destructive consequences of natural and man-made hazards and calamities, and the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act, the country consistently failed to utilize government funds for disaster preparedness, mitigation and response, especially in the context of the latter legislation.³ The local government units tend to follow a ‘reactive type’ of disaster spending, greatly underspending funds intended for more preemptive and long-term programs. In addition, though the archipelagic geography of the Philippines offers natural defenses and hinders armed conflict mobility, it also confounds disaster response coordination and increases vulnerability to maritime threats.

The Philippines must not indulge itself in armed conflict, as the Filipino nation will not certainly stand the shared effects of natural hazards and armed conflict. Below are some of the major and salient areas for the Philippine local and national government, or even private organizations and actors, to act on:

• (i) coordination between the government and private companies or foreign organizations to develop an artificial intelligence-based advanced hazard forecasting device;

• (ii) revisit the bureaucratic government processes to attract research proposals from international funding institutions;

• (iii) adoption and nationwide implementation of a disaster response model⁴ using network science developed by UP scientists;

• (iv) introduce a multidisciplinary Disaster Preparedness and Risk Reduction curriculum in secondary and tertiary education;

• (v) creation of a contingency ‘Crisis Management and Health Task Force’ who will coordinate with other state parties amidst an armed conflict through data sharing, humanitarian corridors, medical neutrality and health diplomacy; and

• (vi) address the ‘brain drain problem’ to maintain a sufficient number of professionals across disciplines who could provide a service in times of disaster.