“Every time a calamity or disaster hits a particular area, the government is at a loss on what to do”
WITH all the calamities and disasters hitting the country, which resulted in the loss of many lives, livelihood projects and loss of agriculture and infrastructure, I believe it is time for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to realize he should prioritize the creation of a Department of Disaster Resilience.
This has been pending in the Senate with only one Senator Christopher “Bong” Go pushing for it.
There is of course the NDRRMC (National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council), an ad hoc body under the civil defense body of the Department of National Defense, but, my gulay, what we need is a permanent body with its own budget allocation.
The Philippines has been judged as the most disaster and calamity prone country in Southeast Asia. It’s a calamity itself for the government and its national leaders not to realize the need for creating a permanent body like a DDR to handle everything.
First, there is a need for a DDR with its own budget allocation so that whenever there are typhoons, floods, landslides, and earthquakes there is already a permanent body assigned to take care of everything, including rescue, relief and rehabilitation.
Right now, it is a calamity itself that we have to wait for foreign aid to help in the mitigation of these disasters and calamities
Secondly there is a need for the government to already study, strategize and prioritize areas that are prone to calamities and disasters.
Every time a calamity or disaster hits a particular area, the government is at a loss on what to do and it takes them some time to find out what could be done before the calamity or disaster hits to prevent loss of lives, destruction of infrastructure and the loss of livelihood.
I feel like I am repeating myself because I have been writing about this need for government to prioritize the creation of a DDR, but nobody seems to mind it, not even President Marcos Jr. himself, unfortunately.
It is strange and a calamity itself for a government not to have a permanent body like a DDR to call upon whenever disaster and calamities strike.
I am not exaggerating when I say the inability or rather, the lack of priority in the creation of a DDR is a disaster itself because of the negligence or the refusal of our leaders to prioritize the need for it.
World leaders must be wondering why a country like the Philippines, prone to disasters and calamities, does not have a permanent body to attend to this problem. It’s bad enough, Santa Banana, that we have anomalies because of corruption in the government .
When a killer typhoon hits a place, we have to wait till it leaves the area of responsibility to find out the result: often the loss of lives, the destruction of government infrastructure and livelihood of people.
I had felt earlier after writing this column that nobody seems to understand the urgent need to prioritize the creation of this DDR because when a calamity hits the Philippines, the first thing we should attend to are the 3 Rs (rescue, relief and rehabilitation), which will be in the structure of the DDR itself.
Santa Banana, I do not like to repeat myself in urging our national leaders, the Senate, the House of Representatives, especially the President himself on the need to prioritize the creation of a DDR because it is pitiful for our country to be dependent on outside relief and rehabilitation.
Yes, we have the capacity to provide rescue, relief and rehabilitation whenever calamities and disasters hit us, but the problem is these are only temporary or ad hoc attempts to mitigate a disaster or calamity that hits the country.
What we need is to prioritize a permanent national DDR that will take care of every calamity or disaster that hits the country.
I don’t know if President Marcos realizes the importance of such a department and is aware that in the final analysis it depends on him on how to mitigate any disaster and calamity that hits the country without waiting for himself declaring a state of calamity for the country when he realizes the impact of such a disaster or on the nation itself.
Santa Banana, we can never predict when the next earthquake, flood, or calamity will strike next, but it might affect you and your loved ones next time, God forbid!
