‘Itogon, Naga disasters could’ve been mitigated’

If the Department of Disaster Resilience had been in place, the massive devastation caused by Typhoon “Ompong” in the northern Philippines would have been mitigated, the principal author of the bill in Congress that would create the agency said.

While noting that the House of Representatives has now passed House Bill 8165 that seeks to create the DDR, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda said if the agency was in place, tragedies caused by Ompong and other natural and man-made disasters and calamities that frequently hit the country would have been avoided.

HB 8165 was approved Sept. 18, three days after Ompong triggered lethal landslides that claimed at least 78 lives in the mining town of Itogon, Benguet, with close to 30 missing.

Five days after the Itogon tragedy, about 70 people were buried in a similar landslide triggered by heavy rains in another mining community—Naga City in Cebu, where 30 persons were reported missing.

Salceda noted that the Naga tragedy and the succeeding investigation, which resulted in the suspension of at least three Mines and Geosciences Bureau officials, is an example of a disaster which should have been mitigated, had the disaster risk reduction aspect been given more weight and priority.

The DDR, he said, would directly address these disasters and help ensure the country’s inclusive economic growth.

Under his proposal, the MGB of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, particularly its Geohazard Unit, will be transferred to the DDR, “which should insulate it from mining interests and focus on the DRR aspects of its mandate,” Salceda said.

The DDR will be “an agency mandated to carry out a consistent and fortified calamity defense program to ensure the country’s sustainable development and inclusive growth through strategic and systematic approaches to disaster prevention and mitigation,” he added.

Once enacted into law, the DDR will integrate warning agencies with risk reduction and response structures and functions that will facilitate decisive contingency planning and warning communications, Salceda said.

It will also provide a shift in strategy from “deterministic to probabilistic approach to risk assessment” while retaining the “Whole-of-Government and Whole-of-Nation” approach, the solon added.

President Rodrigo Duterte had urged Congress to create a disaster management agency in his 2017 and 2018 State of the Nation Addresses. Following the 2017 SONA, Salceda filed his DDR bill version. The 2018 SONA helped expedite House passage of the bill.

Salceda, who also chairs the House Climate Change Committee, said the bill envisions the DDR to be the primary state agency that will lead and manage national efforts to mitigate and address disaster risks.

The department would take under its wings the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Service Administration and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology from the Department of Science and Technology, and the Bureau of Fire Protection from the Department of Interior and Local Government, among other agencies.

Both government and private sectors have publicly acclaimed and widely supported the proposed DDR. Voicing their support for the measure are Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana as chair of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, and former Metro Manila Development Authority chief Francis Tolentino, the President’s focal person on disasters.

Salceda has thanked House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for ensuring the plenary approval of the Official Joint Committee Report as drafted by the Technical Working Group, which he chairs, and endorsed by committees on Government Reorganization, National Defense, and Appropriations.

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