Malacañang has submitted to Congress its version of the bill seeking to create a new department that will oversee efforts on disaster risk management and emergency response.
Copies of the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience were transmitted on Monday by the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office to the Senate and House of Representatives, according to presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Tuesday.
The transmittal came after President Rodrigo Duterte asked lawmakers during his third State of the Nation Address on July 23 to pass the bill "with utmost urgency."
"The bill is a product of inter-agency teamwork, building on the salient points of the pending bills in Congress," Roque said.
"Once passed into law, the creation of the Department will be a significant step toward attaining safe, adaptive, and disaster-resilient communities by leading efforts to reduce the risk of natural hazards and the effects of climate change."
At present, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) is the agency mandated to have policymaking, coordination, integration, supervision, monitoring, and evaluation functions under Republic Act 10121.
"However, this DRRM responsibility is shared among the different lead agencies in such a way that nobody is in charge of the overall disaster resilience on a full-time, focused basis," the Palace-sponsored bill's explanatory note stated.
It also said both human induced and natural disasters are currently lumped in one body – the Office of Civil Defense-- as the coordinating arm of the NDRRMC.
"This set-up is based on the presumption that the competencies, skills, policies, and institutional arrangements necessary to ensure resilience to natural hazards and human-induced disasters are the same. However, the realities of mother nature and climate change debunk this presumption," the bill stated.
"A careful review of each of the natural hazards that the country faces will show that the Department necessitates a highly-specialized set of personnel, resources and policies to bring about disaster resilience."
The proposed department shall be guided by a disaster resilience framework that shall deliver on three key result areas: disaster risk reduction, disaster preparedness and response; and recovery and building forward better.
The bill also provides that the department shall focus on natural hazards and climate change.
It also seeks the creation of a National Disaster Operations Center and Alternative Command and Control Centers to monitor, assess, manage, and respond to disasters in all areas in the country.
It also calls for the establishment of the Disaster Resilience Research and Training Institute, "which shall be a platform for providing training, and for collecting, consolidating, managing, and/or sharing knowledge and information resources to improve and/or boost disaster resilience."
"A key feature of this bill is a clear system of responsibility for disaster preparedness and response classified into four levels – from Levels 1 to 4 or from the municipal/city mayor all the way up to the Secretary of Disaster Resilience," it said.
"This directly answers the oft-repeated question in times of disaster: who is in charge? This system of assigning levels of responsibility is aimed at ensuring unity of command and effective collaboration in the country’s disaster resilience efforts."
The Philippines ranked third on the World Risk Index in 2016 due to its vulnerability to disaster risk.
In particular, researchers said the Philippines has a "high" (80.92 percent) lack of coping capacities, which the report defines as "measures and abilities that are immediately available to reduce harm and damages in the occurrence of an event.”
The study ranked 171 countries according to how exposed and vulnerable they are to natural hazards, including earthquakes, floods and storms. — RSJ, GMA News
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/662453/palace-submits-admin-version-of-bill-creating-department-of-disaster-resilience/story/
Copies of the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience were transmitted on Monday by the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office to the Senate and House of Representatives, according to presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Tuesday.
The transmittal came after President Rodrigo Duterte asked lawmakers during his third State of the Nation Address on July 23 to pass the bill "with utmost urgency."
"The bill is a product of inter-agency teamwork, building on the salient points of the pending bills in Congress," Roque said.
"Once passed into law, the creation of the Department will be a significant step toward attaining safe, adaptive, and disaster-resilient communities by leading efforts to reduce the risk of natural hazards and the effects of climate change."
At present, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) is the agency mandated to have policymaking, coordination, integration, supervision, monitoring, and evaluation functions under Republic Act 10121.
"However, this DRRM responsibility is shared among the different lead agencies in such a way that nobody is in charge of the overall disaster resilience on a full-time, focused basis," the Palace-sponsored bill's explanatory note stated.
It also said both human induced and natural disasters are currently lumped in one body – the Office of Civil Defense-- as the coordinating arm of the NDRRMC.
"This set-up is based on the presumption that the competencies, skills, policies, and institutional arrangements necessary to ensure resilience to natural hazards and human-induced disasters are the same. However, the realities of mother nature and climate change debunk this presumption," the bill stated.
"A careful review of each of the natural hazards that the country faces will show that the Department necessitates a highly-specialized set of personnel, resources and policies to bring about disaster resilience."
The proposed department shall be guided by a disaster resilience framework that shall deliver on three key result areas: disaster risk reduction, disaster preparedness and response; and recovery and building forward better.
The bill also provides that the department shall focus on natural hazards and climate change.
It also seeks the creation of a National Disaster Operations Center and Alternative Command and Control Centers to monitor, assess, manage, and respond to disasters in all areas in the country.
It also calls for the establishment of the Disaster Resilience Research and Training Institute, "which shall be a platform for providing training, and for collecting, consolidating, managing, and/or sharing knowledge and information resources to improve and/or boost disaster resilience."
"A key feature of this bill is a clear system of responsibility for disaster preparedness and response classified into four levels – from Levels 1 to 4 or from the municipal/city mayor all the way up to the Secretary of Disaster Resilience," it said.
"This directly answers the oft-repeated question in times of disaster: who is in charge? This system of assigning levels of responsibility is aimed at ensuring unity of command and effective collaboration in the country’s disaster resilience efforts."
The Philippines ranked third on the World Risk Index in 2016 due to its vulnerability to disaster risk.
In particular, researchers said the Philippines has a "high" (80.92 percent) lack of coping capacities, which the report defines as "measures and abilities that are immediately available to reduce harm and damages in the occurrence of an event.”
The study ranked 171 countries according to how exposed and vulnerable they are to natural hazards, including earthquakes, floods and storms. — RSJ, GMA News
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/662453/palace-submits-admin-version-of-bill-creating-department-of-disaster-resilience/story/
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