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Friday, March 29, 2024

‘Merge disaster dept. with climate council’

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Instead of simply upgrading the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) into a full-blown executive department, presidential aspirant Sen. Manny Pacquiao believes Congress should create a super-agency that not only manages the country’s disaster response and resilience but also creates long-term strategies to deal with climate change.

Pacquiao said the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience should be integrated with the Climate Change Commission to ensure perceptive and proactive government action on all forms of disasters, natural or otherwise.

He noted that the super-powerful typhoons that hit Mindanao and Palawan in recent years are concrete indicators of a shifting climate pattern that should prompt the government to re-assess its disaster resilience and disaster adaptation strategies.

Pacquiao, the lone Mindanaoan and lone Visayan-speaking presidential candidate, said it is only very recently that super typhoons are causing a lot of death and destruction in Mindanao.

Climate change caused by global warming, he said, has turned Mindanao into a “typhoon alley” from November to December.

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Pacquiao also observed the government’s primary disaster response arm, the NDRRMC, is only equipped to respond but not to create long-term disaster adaptation strategies, hence the need to include climate change adaptation in the proposed DDR as part of its primary mandate.

“I grew up in Mindanao and we never really experienced strong typhoons. Biyaya para sa aming mga taga Mindanao ang tubig. Ngayon lang talaga namin nararansan ang mga ganitong kalalakas na mga bagyo,” Pacquiao observed.

Pacquiao said that it was in 2011 when Typhoon Sendong first exposed the vulnerability of Mindanao from powerful typhoons, pummeling Cagayan de Oro with unprecedented rains that killed at least 2,500 people.

A year later, Mindanao was again hit by Typhoon “Pablo” that slammed into Siquijor, Misamis Oriental, Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Sur, Compostela Valley, and Davao Oriental.

Pacquiao also blamed the country’s extreme vulnerability to strong typhoons and heavy monsoons on the unabated illegal logging and mining operations.

Various proposals are now pending in Congress to upgrade the NDRRMC to a full-time executive department, including his Senate Bill 198, which seeks to create the Department of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management.

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