The House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means on Monday approved the substitute bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience.
The committee, chaired by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, approved the substitute bill creating the DDR after the measure got the nod of the House Committee on Government Reorganization last week.
Tingog Party-list Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez, chairperson of the House Committee on Welfare of Children, is the principal author of the DDR, along with her husband, House Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez.
Marked as an urgent bill by President Rodrigo Duterte himself, Yedda Romualdez said it was the second time the House of Representatives has passed the DDR proposal after it was overran by the 2018 national elections in the 17th Congress.
Public clamor for the measure ensued following a series of earthquake devastations in Mindanao, she said.
Rep. Yedda said the Department of Disaster Resilience is envisioned to be the primary government agency that is “responsible, accountable, and liable for leading, managing, and organizing national efforts to prevent and reduce disaster risks; prepare for and respond to disasters; and recover, rehabilitate, and build forward better after the destruction.”
Yedda Romualdez said the DDR will be a full-blown department headed by a secretary, supported by undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and directors with an initial budget of P10 billion.
The proposal initially required taking under DDR’s wings, from their mother departments, the PHIVOLCS and the PAGASA, the Geo-Hazard Assessment and Engineering Geology Section of the MGB, and the BFP said Salceda.
But the House-approved version provides a new provision that preferred the “joint supervision” of these vital government bureaus, which the DDR needed for unity of command during disasters.
Section 94 of the proposal, on Inter-Departmental Relations, now provides that the “DDR shall exercise joint supervision with: 1) the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) over PAGASA and PHIVOLCS; 2) The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), over Geo-Hazard Assessment and Engineering Geology Section of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB), and; 3) the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) over the BFP.
The provision also requires “that the DDR and these departments shall establish systems and protocols for sustained sharing of knowledge, data, information technology, facilities and other resources critical to DRR at all times; that the DDR shall provide DRR training, upgrading of equipment and other logistical requirement… that the said agencies will be under the full supervision and direct control of the DDR in anticipation of, during, and as necessary in the determination of the Secretary, in aftermath of emergencies and disasters.”
But the DDR will still have the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) as its core organization to which will be integrated the Climate Change Commission Office, the Health Emergency Management Bureau of the Department of Health (DOH), the Disaster Response Assistance and the Disaster Response Management Bureau of Department of Social Welfare and Development.
The DDR will also retain the OCD National Council with an expanded membership as the policy advisory board of the Department.