Senators pushed for the creation of the Department of Disaster as National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council executive director Ricardo Jalad expressed apprehension over the move, describing it as “overwhelming.”
Senator Panfilo Lacson, Senate defense committee chairperson, who presided over the hearing on disaster management, objected to the Department of Disaster, warning it would just bloat an already bloated bureaucracy.
“Now, this puts us in a dilemma. As a matter of policy direction, do we create another department that will further bloat an already bloated bureaucracy, or simply make do with a council called National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council that has no focus and responsibility to address natural and man-made calamities that have become permanent and frequent in a country such as ours, which is located along the boundary of major tectonic plates and at the center of a typhoon belt coupled by its socially and economically vulnerable population? “ asked Lacson.
Senate President Vicente Sotto III, Senate Majority Leader Miguel Zubiri and Senators Christopher Go, Francis Tolentino, Ronaldo dela Rosa, and Aquilino Pimentel have aired their support to the creation of the Department of Disaster during the said Senate hearing.
They were among those who filed separate resolutions to establish the department that will handle the country’s disaster resilience and management efforts.
Zubiri said the creation of a Department of Disaster Resilience will ensure a more efficient, coordinated, and complete system of disaster management—from risk assessment to emergency response right down to reintegration assistance and rehabilitation.
He said the proposed Department will take on the powers of and functions of the Office of Civil Defense, the Climate Change Office of the Climate Change Commission, the Geo-Hazard Assessment and Engineering Geology Section of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau, the Health Emergency Management Bureau of the Department of Health, the Disaster Response and Assistance and Management Bureau of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Bureau of Fire Protection, and the Program Management Office for Earthquake Resiliency of the Greater Metro Manila Area.
To complement the goals of the Department of Disaster Resilience Act, Zubiri also brought up the necessity for the National Hazard Mapping Act, the bill for which he filed back in 16 July 2019—one of his first few bills for the 18th Congress.
Tolentino, on the other hand, contradicted Lacson’s remark that the creation would lead to bloating the already bloated bureaucracy since there would be no budgetary restraints.
He said it was a new agency without bloating bureaucracy since there will just be a change in the nameplate.
Jalad noted that “having a department with all the functions regarding the disaster risk reduction and management specifically prevention and preparedness, response and rehabilitation, recovery, response, placing all these functions in one department is very overwhelming.”
He said there was no such department in other countries.
“What I saw in different models that I observed, even in advanced countries, they don’t have some sort of national disaster risk reduction and management department,” he said.
“What they have are emergency management agency wherein we have the urgency to consolidate all efforts regarding emergency management of the different government agencies,” he added.
“The question is do we need a department for disaster risk reduction and management? Again, that is very overwhelming. We might have a problem with capacity of that department to function, all those responsibilities are across the thematic areas of the disaster risk reduction and management,” he added.
He proposed that the central body that will be created may be an authority outside of any of the control of the existing departments and can be placed directly under the Office of the President.
Go downplayed as “overwhelming” creating a disaster department, noting that the NDRRMC does not actually exist.
