Creation of separate agency for disaster response sought

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines – Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez yesterday stressed the need for an independent government line agency to manage the country’s disaster response program.

“There’s a need for a separate government line agency which has its own budget and technical expertise to handle disaster response, unlike the task force-like structure of the present National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council,” Romualdez said.

The Leyte lawmaker came over to the Embarkadero to distribute 3,500 packs of relief goods to residents in the coastal barangays of Victory Village and Puro affected by Typhoon Nona.

Romualdez said the NDRRMC conducts its own assessment of the damage but relief operations are handled by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

“While the NDRRMC prepares a rehab master plan and supplementary budget, the evacuees are left alone and go hungry and it takes a while before the rehab master plan is signed and approved,” he said.

Romualdez has filed House Bill 3486 seeking to create a Department of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management to handle all calamity and disaster-related operations.

Although he admitted the government had prepositioned relief goods and medicine, Romualdez said these are futile measures, particularly in the face ferocious storms like Super Typhoon Yolanda.

Romualdez recalled that before the onslaught of Yolanda, the state weather bureau had given a forecast of storm surge.

“With God’s help we learned the hard way after Yolanda, but most of the people did not know the meaning of storm surge and most of the people do not know how to spell it, and so I suggest that PAGASA should translate the technical term it used in weather forecasting in the dialect so the people can understand it and can follow the weather advisories of the local authorities,” he said.