Senator Ralph Recto on Saturday urged the government to have a “one town, one evacuation” scheme in building evacuation centers.
This as the Department of Public Works and Highways reported that it has built 82 evacuation centers in 52 provinces and is set to construct 55 more.
Recto suggested these structures, which should be able to withstand 300 kilometers per hour winds and an intensity 8 earthquake, should be expanded into a “one town, one evacuation center” program.
He urged the DPWH to explore designs other than the limited-capacity dormitories it is building to include multiple-use gymnasiums that can be transformed into a safe refuge when disaster strikes.
Recto has refiled a bill institutionalizing this kind of public infrastructure “which a country visited by two dozen typhoons a year, one that sits atop the volcanic Ring of Fire, and whose cities submerged during the monsoon months needs.”
“As women, children and elderly comprise the bulk of those displaced by natural and man-made calamities, like fire, the gyms-cum-evacuation centers will be equipped with toilet facilities and a clinic area,” he said.
He said these can be designed to house town libraries, making them youth centers where they can study and play—“activities they can do even when they are temporarily displaced from their homes.”
The sports-cum-evacuation center, Recto explained, “addresses both the shortage of sports facilities in towns and the need for a disaster-resilient building people can seek shelter in during calamities.”
In conflict areas, the “forced vacation” of children whose schools are used to house refugees “is co-terminous with the length of fighting,” Recto said.
He said the gym-cum-evacuation center should serve as the office and the equipment depot of the local disaster response and mitigation team.