Bogo City a finalist in Sasakawa Awards

CEBU, Philippines- The City of Bogo is among the 33 candidates for the prestigious 2015 Sasakawa Awards for Disaster Risk Reduction recognized during the third United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR) last week in Sendai, Japan.

The UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction, an international award, is conferred to an individual or institutions that have taken active efforts in reducing disaster risk in their communities, according to the official website of the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

 The award generated 88 nominations from 44 countries.

 Despite not bagging the award itself, the City of Bogo made it in the long list with its flagship program on disaster risk reduction and management called “Information Management in Preparation for Disasters or I.M. Prepared.

Allan Lavell, a Britain researcher and practitioner in disaster risk reduction, bagged the 2015 Sasakawa Award.

 Under Bogo City’s program, each family, barangay, school and business are required to post in an evident place the emergency and evacuation maps, emergency directories, and emergency kit checklists to prepare them for disasters.

They are also mandated to formulate a Family Evacuation Map approved by the LDRRMO; a Family Communications Plan, and set up a food and water storage container enough for a three-day supply in the advent of a disaster.

 Bogo City Mayor Celestino Martinez Jr. said that the I.M. Prepared program aims to change the mindset of the people from being reactive to proactive.

It also encompasses beyond the government’s existing mechanisms in addressing preparedness issues as it goes down to the family level, through baseline data, family interaction/drills, capacity building, barangay information and education drive in schools.

 Martinez believes that a prepared local government unit can only be achieved if the families are ready as well.

 Ben Fredrick Rodriguez, local DRRM officer of Bogo City and the proponent of the program, told The FREEMAN that it was Department of Interior and Local Government Undersecretary for local government Austere Panadero who nominated the city.

 The program caught the interest of Panadero during his meeting with the city officials in Bogo in July last year and even wanted the other LGUs to replicate it.

In an interview, Cebu Governor Hilario Davide III commended the city for making it on the list for the international award.

“With the nomination nalipay ta kay we know Bogo (City( has been on the forefront of the effort sa rehabilitation and reconstruction after supertyphoon Yolanda,” he told reporters.

The same award was conferred to San Francisco town, Camotes Island in 2011.   (FREEMAN)