Albay Rep. Joey Salceda on Friday called for the creation of the Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR).
Salceda, chairman of the House committee on ways and means, said that “nowhere in the Philippines can now be considered safe from natural disasters with climate change” as Typhoon Odette strikes regions “not usually visited by typhoons.”
Salceda is the principal author of the measure creating the agency. His term as governor was also the model that the measure is based upon.
“Northern Mindanao and Central Visayas aren’t areas that are used to typhoons. Bicol and the Waray region are. As a result, they are structurally and culturally as used to typhoon preparations as Bicol and Eastern Visayas are,” said Salceda.
“This emphasizes the fact that we can no longer say that one area of the country is typhoon-proof. The climate has changed. Our strategies for dealing with disasters must change too,” he added.
Salceda stressed that “our Disaster strategies are extremely local. The national government supports, but the inter-local mechanisms that only a national cabinet agency can muster are not yet there.”
He said: “Our Disaster risk reduction and management councils are locally segmented. The problem is disasters do not respect LGU boundaries. You really need a national agency.”
Salceda said that “regions that are also not yet culturally and structurally prepared can catch up quickly with an institutionalized national framework. That way, they do not have to face a steep learning curve.”
The House has approved the bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience, but the measure is still pending in the Senate.