Disaster resilience and response

By Renato Tibon

“There’s no harm in hoping for the best as long as you’re prepared for the worst.” – Different Seasons, Stephen King

IN my previous article, I wrote about disasters trending in these critical years, globally and regionally, not so much as to hasten panic as a cogent attempt to create awareness.

Natural hazards are stubborn but prevalent occurrences, differing in intensity and the magnitude of destruction they leave in their wake, and if we are to co-exist, we had better deal with them and prepare for the inevitable.

If nature is not whimsical in fancying what catastrophes to inflict mortal creatures, it conspires with foolhardy men who, in their natural inquisitiveness and daring, encroach into the domain of the unknown, open the Pandora’s Box and let loose otherwise dormant creatures such as viruses to annihilate humanity. I mean why do they have to eat snakes and bats trying out exotic foods?

The fatal coronavirus transported globally is traced from this abnormal eating habit infecting and threatening people worldwide and if reports are to be believed, it’s now on our shores and while we can scarcely contain it, we can prepare to prevent it becoming a plague.

The threat is real and just like those cyclones, earthquakes identified in the risk index, are disasters in the making. 

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, during his “Sona” in 2017, gravely concerned about the extent of destruction and suffering that tropical storms and earthquakes caused, especially in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda, the deadliest typhoon on record, asked Congress to pass a law establishing a new department empowered to best deliver an enhanced disaster resiliency and quick disaster response. The extant law, RA 10121 was landmark legislation for Philippine disaster risk reduction and management which initiated a shift from reactive to one that is proactive by prioritizing disaster risk reduction, prevention, and mitigation over disaster response.

In fact, RA 10121 established permanent disaster management offices at local government levels which actually expanded the previous inter-agency body, the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC) into the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) as we know it today.

Jokesters used to bash the former Council as the reason why disasters do not leave the country: they actually coordinate them. The new body is “mandated to supervise and lead not only emergency management but also in the implementation of disaster risk reduction through policy-making, coordination, integration, supervision, monitoring and evaluation functions.”

However, the succedent disasters that culminated with Typhoon Yolanda showed the institutional weakness of the set-up under the law “where extreme difficulties were encountered in carrying out the heavy responsibility of concretely integrating the disaster risk management framework in our national and local planning processes and ensuring that institutions tasked with safeguarding environmental protection, health and well-being, sustainable livelihoods, social protection and the regulation of public and private infrastructure are actually equipped with skills and knowledge necessary for effective risk assessments and vulnerability reduction so that the impacts of disasters are truly prevented or mitigated.” Its shortcoming was highlighted from the fact that government failed to create an institution, high enough to oversee the “implementation of streamlined risk reduction and management policies nationwide, a body that has the authority, mandate, and resources to lead and coordinate the efforts of different stakeholders towards a more resilient nation.”

Resiliency here is referred to as the ability of the community or society exposed to hazards “to resist, absorb, adapt to, transform, accommodate, and recover from the effects of hazards” through risk management policies that enhance the capacity to withstand present and future risks. Filipinos are known to roll with the punches so to speak and respond adequately to preserve life and meet basic needs although due to loopholes in the system, unscrupulous elements take advantage by advancing their selfish agenda.

Recent discoveries showed that tens of thousands of undistributed goods rushed by international as well as local donors to mitigate hunger and ensuing suffering of victims were kept beyond usefulness by heartless, rotten-to-the-core elements masquerading as government officials.

In the aftermath of the Mt. Taal volcano’s eruption, people were denied access to donated goods and equipment to keep them warm because of the bureaucratic intervention of uncaring people charged with the distribution. As pundits would say, the disaster was politicized. I wish they’d be charged with economic sabotage and made to face a firing squad.

In line with the congressional Sunset Review, member agencies of the NDRRMC, civil society organizations and basic sectors have dialogued on past experiences and implementations of RA 10121 to look at how the law can be further improved to address the ever-increasing challenges of disaster risk reduction and management in the country. They are of accord to propose the creation of the Department of Disaster Resiliency (DDR), a much-needed, stronger and self-governing body that is clearly mandated “to lead in the coordination, monitoring, oversight, and implementation of disaster risk reduction and management, equipped with the necessary competence and resources to engage new actors and built with the necessary structure to manage broader governance and oversee the implementation of disaster risk and vulnerability reduction and management’’ functions which are not present under present laws. It will now be DDR instead of the Office of Civil Defense who used to implement the mandates under RA 10121, as lead agency for the implementation of “(1) vulnerability and risk reduction policies, programs and projects, (2) rehabilitation and reconstruction and (3) assess collective progress towards a comprehensive sustainable manner.”

This bill was submitted by Congressman Joey S. Salceda and co-authored by Cagayan de Oro District 2 Congressman Rufus B. Rodriguez.

(Renato Gica Tibon is a fellow of the Fellowship of the 300, an elite organization under Centrist Democracy Political Institute with focus on political technocracy. He  holds both position as political action officer and program manager of the Institute. He is the former regional chairman for Region 10 and vice president for Mindanao of the Centrist Democratic Party of the Philippines.)