Using a varibale outside of the event listener block

Question

I have been having difficulty accessing the variables populated within an eventlistener which is used to obtain the results from a php query. I tried a number of different ideas but I have been unsuccessful. Any help would be appreciated

{ 
    var longnew = -64.1;
    var latnew = 44.52;
    var trigger = 10;
    var longs = 0;
    var lats = 0;
     
    query.addEventListener("submit", (event) =>{}) 
    onsubmit = (event) => {
        let long = "<?php echo"$long"?>";
        let lat = "<?php echo"$lat"?>";
        longs = parseFloat(long);
        lats = parseFloat(lat);
        trigger = 1;

        if (trigger == 1){ //check variables
            alert('Updated Extent:'+ longs + ', ' + lats + ', ' + trigger); // this reports the old   search values check order of php sqlite query
        }
    }
    
    if(trigger == 1) { //check to see if trigger isbeing read
        alert('Updated Extent:'+ longs + ', ' + lats + ', ' + trigger); // this reports the old search values check order of php sqlite query
        longnew = longs;
        latnew = lats;
    }
      
    alert('Default or Updated Extent (*new): '+longnew + ', ' +latnew + ', ' +trigger);
       
}

I assumed by declaring the variables longs and lats at the start of the block that they could be populated and accessible. I also tried declaring a function but it also did not work.