TO FURTHER develop the culture of disaster resilience and preparedness, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) urged the local government units (LGUs) to adopt and practice Operation Listo: Disaster Preparedness Manual Version 3, which was rolled out Thursday, April 11, at Grand Regal Hotel.
Director Allan B. Tabell, chief of Central Office Disaster Information and Coordination Center (Codix) of the DILG, in an interview said this manual is designed to build or strengthen awareness among LGUs on the preparations during, and the series of actions to be administered after a disaster strikes a municipality or city.
He said Listo has been around since 2014 but they keep on improving it until they come up with the third version. They developed this manual to have a unified standard in educating Filipinos in terms of disaster risk management, taking the aftermath of Yolanda as a lesson as they realized that there are things that could have been done to mitigate its effect in the past.
In its second version, the manual has three handbooks composed of first early preparation, the critical preparation for mayors and actions that must be undertaken by the DILG officer on the ground, the city or municipal local government officer, the chief of police and the fire marshall as a team to support the mayor.
However, as a practice, those involved only read their part and does not understand the action of the others as he said, "The left hand does not understand what the right hand is doing." So they thought of converging it in one book and came up with version 3.
The manual contains a flowchart which defines all the next stages with corresponding specific minimum actions to be undertaken. But for now, it is only focused on hydromet or those disasters related to typhoons, landslides, storm surges and among others.
"It is a checklist, these are the minimum ‘to-do’ actions of the mayor and the LGU before, during, and after they were hit by the disaster," Tabell said. "Merong isang libro doon sa version 2 na tinatawag na critical preparation for mayors, these are the actions na kinakailangan pag meron ng warning ang Pagasa and then anong gagawin ni mayor."
Over the years they keep on improving after citing that there is a need to revise the standard because of the changing landscape and newly-discovered strategies to better improve disaster preparedness.
By the end of the year, they are also planning to release a Listo manual for earthquake and tsunami.