"Disaster resilience advocates are worried the same dismal turn of events might happen again."
"Disaster resilience advocates are worried the same dismal turn of events might happen again."
Natural disasters are very much a fact of life in the Philippines, a country that is located at the axis of the world’s typhoon belt and the Pacific Ring of Fire. Every year, around 20 typhoons unleash their wrath, causing death and destruction along their path. In addition, an average of 20 earthquakes a day — most of them unnoticed but there are a few that are felt — caused much damage to property.
But the frequent occurrence of natural disasters of increasing magnitude in recent years has become a source of concern. In fact, the Philippines is now considered the second most vulnerable country in the world to disasters and climate change. Nearly 74 percent of the population and 80 percent of the land area are identified as vulnerable to disasters, with the capital of Manila considered at “extreme risk.”
It was super typhoon Yolanda that led the government to review and improve the country’s disaster management strategy. The devastation that resulted from the strongest typhoon in recorded human history ever to make landfall exposed the weaknesses of the existing institutional set-up under the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council. The existing ad hoc coordinating body was proven to lack the authority, capacity, and resources needed in coordinating and implementing large scale disaster-risk reduction and management efforts.
The proposal that ensued was to establish a responsive, efficient and equipped stand-alone agency to lead and coordinate the rescue and response efforts of local government units and the different stakeholders, to prepare for natural disasters and ensure disaster risk reduction and to oversee the implementation of streamlined disaster-risk reduction and management policies nationwide.
It came as no surprise then, that President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, who as mayor of Davao City was the first local government official to visit Tacloban City, just three days after super typhoon Yolanda, included in his first State of the Nation Address in 2016, a call to establish a “Department of Disaster Resilience.”
President Duterte would again repeat his plea to Congress in the three SONAs that followed – 2018, 2019 and 2020, highlighting the need for Congress to pass the bill creating the DDR.
Rep. Yedda Marie K. Romualdez of Tingog Party-List, a regional party-list group based in Eastern Visayas, is one of the strongest advocates for the creation of the DDR. She once mentioned that even prior to President Duterte’s first SONA, she personally wrote to the President, asking him to include the creation of the disaster agency in his legislative agenda. Romualdez would later on file a bill that was the first to propose a “department-level” disaster management agency. She would eventually chair the technical working group that would prepare the consolidated substitute DDR bill.
The House of Representatives was quick to respond to the President’s call. In 2018, the lower house passed its version of the DDR bill. The Senate counterpart bill, however, never passed committee deliberations. As a result, the Seventeenth Congress failed to approve the proposed legislative measure on time.
Disaster resilience advocates are worried the same dismal turn of events might happen again. Thankfully, the DDR bill was refiled in the Eighteen Congress and last September 21, the House of Representatives was able to approve its version of the Disaster Resilience Act on third and final reading.
Sadly, the Senate version still appears to be languishing at the committee level.
Hopefully, the Senate will no longer disappoint the Filipino people, especially regions and provinces that are most vulnerable large-scale natural disasters.
Once signed into law, the bill would create the Department of Disaster Resilience, which would be the primary government agency responsible for “leading, organizing, and managing national effort to reduce disaster risk, prepare for and respond to disasters, recover and rehabilitate, and build forward better after the occurrence of disasters.” The proposed DDR will focus on natural hazards and disasters, taking charge of the three key areas: disaster risk reduction, disaster preparedness and response, and recovery, rehabilitation and building forward better.
Agencies that are now tasked to respond to natural disasters will be integrated into the new department. The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) will serve as the core organization of the DDR and the NDRRMC will be abolished.
Despite earlier assurances that the Senate will prioritize the DDR measure, its action on the bill remains much wanting. Senate President Vicente Sotto III once raised the possibility of approving the Senate version before the Senate takes its Christmas break last year, but that did not push through.
Since then, natural disasters have continued to plague our country. These include the eruption of Taal Volcano in January and the super typhoon Rolly just this week, displacing and putting at risk entire communities.
While it seems that the entire country agrees that strengthening our disaster management capability must be of utmost priority, the Senate appears to be out of touch, and even the President’s pleas to the upper house have fallen on deaf ears.
Until the Senate finds it in its heart to act with dispatch, our resilience to the impact of natural disasters will have to wait, our need for a better equipped and stronger disaster management agency will stay unresolved and the lives, safety and well-being of a great number of our people will remain at risk.