DAGUPAN, Pangasinan – The Philippines will continue to achieve growth amid losses from recent typhoons that heavily wrought havoc to country’s infrastructure and agriculture sectors, acting National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Director General Augusto B. Santos Wednesday said.

He expressed optimistic that with the public-private sector partnership, the economy will even more grow by at least one percent and by 3.2 percent in 2010.

He attributed the expected growth to the continued remittances from the overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), exports and the government’s sound fiscal policy.

During his report in the Cabinet meeting, Santos said tropical storm Ondoy’s damage to infrastructure and agriculture reached P3.68 billion and P6.76 billion, respectively. While, typhoon Pepeng destroyed P1.09 billion worth of infrastructure and wrought damage to agriculture amounting to P3.99 billion.

Santos cited the need for a reserve funding for disaster prevention, relief and rehabilitation “assume that more freak climate episodes will come.”

Aside from hastening the clean up operations, he endorsed the deployment of the new flood-resistant and drought-resistant rice strains to key areas.

“We reiterate our call to popularize opportunities from carbon trading for the business sector,” he said.

His call was supported by Mrs. Arroyo who called on the private sector to participate in government’s fight against climate change through carbon trading activities.

Secretary Heherson T. Alvarez, presidential adviser on global warming and climate change, has called on the public to contribute to the government’s efforts to address the problem of climate change.

Alvarez, who recently headed the Philippine delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) conference in Bonn, Germany four months ago, participated in the discussions and negotiations in forging an effective international climate change deal for the Copenhagen conference in December.

The former senator expressed alarm over the snowballing number of catastrophes that hit the country, which according to him, were brought about by climate change.

Santos further noted that more banks should be encouraged to cut their borrowing constraints as their contribution in addressing the crisis.

He also recommended the government to consult with expert urban planners and enforce their advice so that the spillways of Metro Manila and other cities are protected from clogging.