The creation of a department on disaster risk and reduction management will help ensure that relief efforts trickle down to the grassroots level, a Palace official said on Saturday.
“There really is a proposal to amend Republic Act No. 10121 to strengthen the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010. [Because] the structure really is insufficient, the role and responsibilities of the stakeholders are unclear and their budget is too little,” Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said in a radio dzMM interview.
“We really need a department for us to adapt to the changes that we have here in our country,” he added.
President Rodrigo Duterte in his second State of the Nation Address said that he wanted big changes to the Republic Act No 10121 or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 to create a new agency with stronger powers, not merely coordinative powers.
The new agency shall be called “The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority,” or NDRRMA, which will be responsible for protecting the population from man-made and natural calamities with both policy and implementing powers.
Andanar said that under the proposed bill, local government units are required to create Disaster Coordinating Offices in the municipalities to better prepare for natural and man-made disasters.
“So these are the things that we have to adopt in order to have a very fast coordinating team when a calamity strikes. We cannot avoid it because of the more than 21 typhoons that strike the country yearly,” he said. “We really need faster rehabilitation plans because the problems that we have were the same in the past 30 years. We’re lacking of consistent recovery and rehabilitation standards,” he added, referring to the country’s experience during the onslaught of supertyphoon “Yolanda.”
Also on Saturday, Philippine Volcanology and Seismology chief Renato Solidum welcomed the proposal for a DRRM Department, saying it would greatly reduce the estimated 48,000 loss of lives in Metro Manila and nearby provinces in case a 7.2-magnitude earthquake or the so-called “Big One” hits Manila.
“There would be more concerted effort and there will be people whose focus will only be on DRRM and not only on search and rescue,” he said.