RESIDENTS in danger zones will now be forced out to avoid loss of life.
The Police Regional Office Cordillera is now ready to enforced forced evacuation upon orders of the chief executives in times of calamity.
“We will be applying three stages during this time, first is a normal status of evacuation wherein even if there are no threats present, families may opt to evacuate on their own, second would be preemptive evacuation wherein we will be assisting them in evacuating due to possible threats, and this’d would be forced evacuation to the point of physically evacuating families in identified danger zone areas,” Police Regional Office Cordillera director Rolando Nana said.
If by chance, local chief executives are not present in the area, the city or provincial disaster risk reduction and management officer will be tasked to give the order for force evacuation.
“Once the order for forced evacuation will be given to us by either the local chief executive or the designated DRRM Officer, then we will strictly apply the process of force evacuation,” Nana said.
Office of the Civil Defense Cordillera director Ruben Carandang, for his part, said if ever no DRRM Officer in the Municipal, City or Provincial level would be present, OCD will give the order.
“It would be under our jurisdiction if ever no local chief executives or designated DRRM officers would be present to do the declaration. We will then be tasked to take over if ever to make the decision for force evacuation depending on t(e assessment we will be making,” Carandang explained.
During the onslaught of Typhoon Ompong, ten local chief executives in Cordillera and region 2 were allegedly reported to have been missing in action leaving their constituents to tend for themselves in facing the wrath of Ompong.