"Tolentino knows what he is doing."
"Tolentino knows what he is doing."
When Taal Volcano erupted about 10 days ago, Senator Francis “Tol” Tolentino was among the first to respond to the call for help. But of course it was expected as he hails from both Batangas (Tanauan to be exact) and Tagaytay, Cavite, two provinces greatly affected by Taal’s fury.
But unlike traditional responses extended by other political leaders like organizing relief and rescue operations, what Tol did was to systematize government response to the disaster by calling for an inter-agency meeting among the mayors of Batangas and Cavite towns, representatives from the Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Public Works and Highways, Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Philippine National Police, Armed Forces of the Philippines, Southern Luzon Command, Department of Health, National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office, Batangas provincial government, and others whose offices are concerned in attending to disaster.
Despite being criticized by a know-it-all radio commentator who attacked Tol for calling a meeting instead of immediately attending to the needs of the evacuees, the neophyte senator was undeterred. And in that meeting, Tolentino made sure the need for emergency food packs, drinking water, blankets, mats, along with military trucks to transport evacuees from Taal to safer places like Bauan and Batangas City, will be addressed.
So the result—a systematic government operation with regard to the needs of those affected by Taal’s eruption and zero casualty as of this writing.
Tol wants more. Now that the relief and rescue operations are in place (rescue operations for animals both farm and pets left by their owners), the evacuees safely tucked in evacuation centers put up in nearby towns, the lawmaker wants to up the ante by establishing a new agency to handle disasters—the Department of Disaster Management or a Department of Disaster Resilience.
However, this early, Senator Richard Gordon is already opposing Tol’s proposal saying local governments are equipped with calamity funds that they can use for emergency response.
All we need, according to Gordon, is for the proper utilization of government funds. Gordon even went to the extent of proposing the creation of a program that will manage all the disaster relief efforts, just like the creation of the Mt. Pinatubo Commission when the Pinatubo volcano erupted.
The program, according to Gordon, will be administered by the Commission should handle all the nitty-gritty of rescue, rehabilitation and relief work needed in major catastrophes.
But then, Tol knows where he is coming from. The program or the Commission Gordon is talking of, even the Philippine Red Cross which Gordon himself heads and the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, will be, or are only activated on a per need basis.
Tol has been there, and has done that. He was a former local executive. He was a former chair of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority. He has been a political adviser of President Rodrigo Duterte and his point-man in every major disaster and catastrophe such as typhoons and earthquakes. He has overseen operations for countless disasters both man-made and natural. And he knows the limits of a per-need activation of any agency to address any issue at hand.
The key to every disaster is preparedness. And that is what his proposed new agency aims to address.
“If we have a Department of Disaster Management, they will be in charge and will be able to work from the very minute that the emergency happened,” Tolentino avers.
To allay Gordon’s fear the new department would only add up to an “already bloated executive and eat up more funds,” Tol proposes the consolidation of the budget of the NDRRMC, and other government agencies that would be under the new department. He even proposed that the Bureau of Fire Protection, now under the Department of the Interior and Local Government, be transferred to the new department.
In that way, Tol says “we will have more people in the field doing rescue and relief work.”
But more importantly, we will have an agency which we can rely will be attending to any disaster the very moment something crops up. Just like the Scout motto, and agency which is “always prepared. Laging Handa.”
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My apologies for my column last Monday. Someone called up my attention regarding lawyer Larry Gadon’s filing of the impeachment complaint against Ma. Lourdes Sereno. It was Aug. 30, 2017 and not January of last year.
And by the way, it was also Big Shot Larry who assisted Peter Joemel Advincula, aka Bikoy in the filing of sedition charges against Leni Robredo and other political leaders in connection with their alleged participation in the concoction and actual product of the “Totoong Narcolist Video,” which was reportedly done to facilitate the ouster of President Rodrigo Duterte.
My apologies.