THE Office of the Civil Defense has named a new regional director for Zambonga Peninsula.

This came about as OCD Administrator Ricardo Jalad has reshuffled the agency’s regional directors here in Mindanao.

Emilia Vasquez-Julhajan, OCD-Zamboanga Peninsula Disaster Risk Reduction Management Services chief, said the new regional director is Leoncio Cirunay Jr.

Cirunay, formerly assigned in Davao Region, has replaced Manuel Luis Ochotorena, who has served for more than a year as OCD-Zamboanga Peninsula director.

Ochotorena has taken over the vacancy left by Cirunay as the former was assigned as the new OCD director in Davao Region.

Julhajan said Cirunay’s appointment as OCD-Zamboanga Peninsula was Thursday, March 1, based on the order penned by Jalad.

Cirunay, a retired military general, is an advocate of the Incident Command System (ICS).

The ICS is a standardized approach to the command, control and coordination of emergency response providing a common hierarchy within which responders from multiple agencies can be effective. (Bong Garcia/SunStar Philippines)