Leyte Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez on Monday filed a bill seeking to create the Department of Disaster Resilience that is more attuned and responsive to the desired version of President Rodrigo Duterte, which guarantees a unity of command, science-based approach, and full-time focus on natural hazards and disasters.
In other developments:
• Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is preparing the House of Representatives for the eventual passage of a disaster management bill by creating a committee on disaster management in the chamber.
President Rodrigo Duterte earler called on the Congress to pass the bill that provides for the creation of the Department of Disaster Management.
Arroyo said the new committee will tackle the disaster preparedness and resiliency of every district in the country.
• To mitigate disaster risk in times of calamity, the Office of the President, through the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office, has submitted the administration’s version of the bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience to the Offices of the Senate President and the House Speaker, the Palace confirmed Tuesday.
Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque Jr. told reporters that the bill was anchored on the government’s experience with previous disasters, among them Super Typhoon “Yolanda,” and guided by Duterte’s leadership principles.
Under House Bill 7968, Romualdez, the newly elected chairwoman of the House committee on accounts, said her latest proposal was an improved version of her HB 344 that she earlier filed following Duterte’s renewed call during his third State of the Nation Address for Congress to expedite the passage of the bill that mandates the creation of a new department that would exclusively manage the preparation and response to calamities.
Romualdez, a vice chairwoman of the House committee on government enterprises and privatization, said her proposal “aims to drastically reduce, if not totally eliminate, the bureaucratic red tape which has caused many delays in the delivery of immediate assistance needed by the victims.”
To ensure DDR’s unity of command as Duterte pointed out, the Romualdez bill will abolish the Climate Change Commission and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
“The Department shall be authorized to call upon relevant government agencies and facilitate the assistance of non-government and private organizations, especially in emergency cases,” Romualdez’s bill says.
The bill guarantees a fast and responsive procurement process to ensure the swift delivery of assistance.
“The Department shall institutionalize innovative and responsive procurement mechanisms, e.g. stand-by contracts, pre-arranged systems of procurement with a pre-approved list of contractors, pre-negotiated contracts, advanced procurement contracts, and framework contracts, among others, to ensure the country’s resilience to natural hazards and disasters,” the bill says.
The proposal empowers the DDR to develop science and IT-based approach “mechanisms to ensure the inter-operability of systems among relevant agencies to ensure real-time access to relevant information, including multi-hazard mapping, risk assessment, early warning, exposure database and communication and emergency management systems, among others.”
Romualdez, wife of Philippine Constitution Association President Martin Romualdez, said the DDR will effectively improve the institutional capacity of the government for disaster risk reduction and management, reduce the vulnerabilities surrounding the affected local population as well as build the resilience of local communities to both natural and; man-made disasters and calamities.
Martin Romualdez originally advocated the measure at the 16th Congress following the onslaught of Typhoon “Yolanda” on Nov. 8, 2013.