Quezon City has placed third in this year’s search for the country’s best highly-urbanized city disaster risk reduction management council or DRRMC.
Quezon City represented the National Capital Region for the Gawad Kalasag national competition.
Mayor Herbert Bautista received the award in a ceremony held on Thursday, June 8, at the Philippine International Convention Center in Pasay.
Quezon City under Bautista has invested a lot of capital to acquire and install state-of-the-art equipment and technologies needed to promote human security and in the strengthening of the city’s capabilities and resiliency, especially in times of calamity.
Quezon City also has one of the most advanced Emergency Operations Center in Asia, Bautista said.
“The city has one of the best programs and capacity to address the four thematic areas [of disaster management], for example in prevention and mitigation, we have a lot of infrastructure built by the local government to mitigate the flood,” Quezon City DRRMC head Karl Michael Marasigan said.
Last December, Quezon City was recognized by the Office of Civil Defense as the best highly-urbanized city DRRMC in the National Capital Region, based on promoting innovation and excellence on disaster risk reduction management and humanitarian assistance.
A five-man validating team formed by the Gawad Kalasag organizing committee assessed Quezon City’s disaster risk reduction and management efforts, composed of representatives from the Office of Civil Defense, League of Cities of the Philippines and Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Quezon City’s disaster risk reduction and management effort is a consolidation of some of the best practices adopted by other local government units.
“Quezon City is far more progressive in disaster risk management and is more pro-active as far as climate change adaptation is concerned,” City Administrator Aldrin Cuña said during the Gawad Kalasag audit.