President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Thursday poured cold water on a legislative push to create a Department of Disaster Resilience, saying such a body should be under the Office of the President.
At a briefing in Abra, the epicenter of Wednesday’s powerful earthquake, the President said the government must disabuse itself of the idea of creating new departments despite a congressional push to pass a law on its creation.
He said he agreed with his sister, Senator Imee Marcos, that a disaster response body should be under the OP.
He said this was preferable to a full-blown department whose budget would be eaten up by salaries for undersecretaries and assistant secretaries.
“I did not ever understand the concept of a full… department. I don’t think we need that because you don’t really have to form policy,” Marcos said.
“It is just an implementation of a rescue mission or search and rescue mission,” he added, citing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the United States as a “good model.”
“There are many models, but the good model I’ve seen is FEMA in the United States and that’s only an adjunct of the… Department of the Interior,” the President said.
Senator Marcos said creating a disaster body under the OP would save the government a lot of money.
House Speaker Martin Romualdez, who was present at the briefing, vowed support for Senator Marcos’ suggestion.
“Mr. President, on the part of the House, we shall support the good senator’s proposal here owing to the fact that we have always been looking for best practices in FEMA,” Romualdez said.
Although Congress has supported the creation of a DDR, Romualdez said legislators would stand behind the administration’s rightsizing policy.
“Mr. President, we shall rightsize our legislation,” Romualdez said.
Earlier, lawmakers said this week’s powerful temblor emphasized the need to create a full-blown department to deal with disasters.
Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte Duterte, along with Benguet Rep. Eric Yap, Quezon City Rep. Ralph Tulfo and ACT-CIS Partylist Reps. Edvic Yap, Jocelyn Tulfo and Jeffrey Soriano recently filed House Bill 452 that aims to create the DDR.
The measure seeks to create an “empowered, highly specialized, science and ICT (information and communications technology)-based and fast and responsive Department of Disaster Resilience, with the clear unity of command which shall be primarily responsible for ensuring safe, adaptive, and disaster-resilient communities.”
Duterte said that under the bill, the DDR shall manage and direct the implementation of national, local, and community-based disaster resilience and disaster management programs, projects, and activities in collaboration with relevant government agencies, LGUs, civil society organizations, academic groups, and other stakeholders.
“We should emphasize the science-based aspect of this proposal. With the Philippines among the countries most vulnerable to the destructive effects of climate change, science and technology should play a key role in helping us prepare for possible disasters,” Duterte said.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said at least five people have been reported to have died and over 60 others have been injured when a 7.0 magnitude quake hit the northern Philippines on Wednesday, July 27.
Duterte noted that in the 2019 World Risk Index, the Philippines ranked 8th in the list of countries most affected by extreme weather events. The country is visited by at least 20 typhoons a year and sits in the Pacific’s earthquake and volcano Ring of Fire.
Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) show that extreme events and disasters from 2010 to 2019 cost the Philippine economy nearly P500 billion in losses, Duterte added.
Duterte pointed out that their proposed measure includes the establishment of a National Disaster Operations Center (NDOC), Alternative Command and Control Centers (ACCCs) in the regions, and the Disaster Resilience Research and Training Institute (DRRTI).
He said the DRRTI will help develop a highly professionalized corps of officers that will oversee, among others, multi-hazard mapping; risk analysis; and the setting up of a database that includes relevant information from other government agencies and third parties for the DDR to better prepare and respond to natural hazards.
Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda, principal author of the proposal for a DDR, challenged his counterparts in the Senate “to discuss and pass its version of the DDR without waiting for the House.
Salceda, chairman of the House ways and means committee, said the Senate could take such action since this proposal does not have to originate in the House.
“We’re lucky because disaster response is now quick, and the government was able to preposition resources. That is to the credit of this government… But disaster response is the least our institutions can and should do. An ounce of prevention is always better than a ton of cure, and resiliency is much more than a good response,” Salceda said.
“That is why we need some national agency that does not merely coordinate, unlike the NDRRMC. We need an agency that can conduct its own resilience activities, to help create safer communities before a disaster even comes,” he added.
“We know disasters will always come our way,” he said. “The annual cost—real damage and opportunity costs—of disasters amount to between 2.5 to 5 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) every year.”
“Over the past decade, from 2010 to 2019, official statistics record 12,097 deaths from disasters, which means that disasters killed around 1,200 people every year. Beyond the economic costs, the state has a moral obligation to save lives, especially from highly preventable causes like disasters,” Salceda added.
Salceda said the challenge for the Senate “is to take the proposal up, discuss, compromise, craft their own version, and eventually vote on it. If they really believe that we do not need this agency, at least have the honesty to reject it in a committee or plenary vote.”
He said this was the third attempt to get DDR legislation passed—a move that has been frustrated so far by Senate inaction.
Salceda conceded that the agency does not have to be a full department as the House wants, but closer to the FEMA in the United States as Senator Marcos proposed.
“It’s still early in the President’s term. We have time. But we should not treat this time as an excuse for complacency. If trends continue, we already know that at least 7,200 people will die of preventable disaster-related causes during President Marcos’s term of office, if we keep doing what we have kept doing. Knowing that, delaying what we know to be necessary is unconscionable.”
The idea of a full-blown department has also been supported by Senator Christopher Go, who renewed his call for creating such an agency.
“Once established, we will have a Cabinet secretary-level department whose primary tasks are not limited to extending immediate assistance but also [ensuring] the rapid recovery and rehabilitation of affected communities,” said Go.
Go has reintroduced in the 19th Congress Senate Bill No. 188 to establish the DDR.