Cagayan de Oro to host a Mindanao-wide disaster summit

Thursday, February 2, 2012

CAGAYAN De Oro City, still reeling from damage brought by Tropical Storm Sendong last year, will host a Mindanao-wide disaster preparedness summit on February 18 to 19 to craft policy that will "prevent the loss of more lives in the event of calamities."

The summit will gather Mindanaoan lawmakers and local government officials as well as representatives of non-government organizations in the first of a series of summits that Pimentel hopes will lead to a national disaster preparedness summit. “Our people's serious resolve to prevent the loss of more lives in the event of calamities, cannot be over-emphasized because of the tragic lessons learned by the people of Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, and Dumaguete from Sendong,” Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, who is from Cagayan De Oro City, said.

He said the summit will attempt to create "a unified and well-coordinated disaster-preparedness plan to prevent further loss of lives and destruction of property." That will include disaster risk reduction measures and a better system for post-disaster relief and rehabilitation.

Pimentel, who flew to Cagayan de Oro in late December, said he saw a lack of coordination between the national and local governments from warning residents of the danger posed by Sendong "up to the gathering of cadavers and their identification."

"There was virtually no system (in place) as bodies were seen paraded in a dumpsite," Pimentel said.

Attendees of the summit will also try to take stock of infrastructure in Mindanao to find out which need repairs as well as check whether local governments already have disaster early-warnings systems and disaster plans in place.

Pimentel will convene the summit with Senator Teofisto Guingona III, the other Mindanaoan at the Senate.

"Typhoon Sendong was a relatively weak typhoon, and yet the death and destruction that it brought rival even the stronger typhoons that have hit the country in the past. The proper preparedness could have mitigated the impact that Sendong has brought upon Mindanao," Guingona said in a press statement Thursday.

The summit will be held at the Dynasty Hotel in Cagayan De Oro City. It will be followed by a series of similar summits on disaster-preparedness in the other regions of the country.

“Even if only one life is saved out of a well-drawn disaster preparedness plan, resulting from the proposed summit, then it would be all worth the effort,” Pimentel said. (Jonathan de Santos/Sunnex)