The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) has called for sustained cooperation among the various government agencies, private sector and the public to boost the country’s disaster resilience.
OCD administrator Undersecretary Ariel Nepomuceno made this remark in observance of this year’s National Disaster Resilience Month (NDRM).
He said a whole-of-nation approach is important in building disaster resilience.
“NDRM 2023 is a call for us to continue working to make the Signature Filipino Smile of Resilience clearly stand for our ability to mitigate, prepare, respond, and recover from disasters. The time is now for us to scale up our strategies and work in surmounting the impacts of disaster through foresight and preparedness,” Usec. Nepomuceno, who is also executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC), said in a statement.
With the theme: “BIDAng Pilipino: Building a stronger Filipino well-being towards disaster resilience,” the agency is advocating for a collective effort to ensure the safety of communities against disaster by promoting well-being holistically. Vince Lopez
“Our goal is to make the annual NDRM observance bring our nation closer to the goal of building safer, climate change adaptive and disaster resilient communities across these islands. Our countrymen
can thus be assured that we at the OCD will continue to advocate for action and cooperation from all levels of governance, community-based organizations and the public to ensure the safety, adaptiveness and resilience of every Filipino for this generation and the next,” he added.
Meanwhile, the OCD launched the Resilience Mobile Photography and ‘Reel-silience’ contests to encourage public participation in the observance along with its Information, Education and Communication campaign on NDRM.
Executive Order No. 29 signed on June 28, 2017 mandates the observance of NDRM “throughout the country through the conduct of activities relative to building of disaster resilience covering the four thematic areas,” Regional DRRMCs, Local DRRMCs, and Barangay Committee are also tasked to implement activities and programs relative to NDRM.
The NDRRMC through the OCD leads the month-long celebration of NDRM.
The council member agencies, regional DRRMCs and OCD regional offices have also started implementing their respective programs and activities for NDRM 2023.