Community radio for disasters

(Photo by pixabay.com)
(Photo by pixabay.com)

THE Davao City Government will be setting up a radio station aiming to effectively disseminate information on disaster preparedness and advisories.

City Information Office (CIO) chief information officer Jefry Tupas said on Thursday, August 29, that the “Disaster and Emergency Radio” is an effective medium of airing early warning advisories on expected weather calamities and other emergency situation.

“The vision is to answer what we are lacking and weakness during disasters, which is communication,” Tupas said during the iSpeak media forum at the City Hall of Davao.

“We want to establish a community radio covering the entire Davao City to give firsthand information in times of emergencies so that they would immediately inform us what is happening and what could happen especially if we are expecting a flood or disaster,” Tupas added.

He said the city government is currently processing necessary documents to be submitted to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) for the station to fully operate.

Tupas said NTC also gave them a frequency on the FM band, which he opted not to disclose for now. But he said “it’s a good frequency”.

He said the community radio is expected to operate before the year ends.

City Disaster and Risk Reduction Management Office (CDDRMO) operations officer Rodrigo Bustillo said it is an effective way of bringing information to the public especially on far-flung areas who continuously rely on radio as a medium for information.

“Isa na sa mga effective ways to bring advisories sa atong mga tao, which is for implementation na gyud siya (This is one of the effective ways of bringing advisories to the people, which is for implementation),” Bustillo said.

Bustillo said CDDRMO lauded CIO’s initiative of proposing the plan for it will be able to reach more people especially in times of disaster.

Recently, four highly affected villages of the city namely Los Amigos and Tugbok Proper of Tugbok District; Barangay Talomo of Talomo District; and Barangay Wangan of Calinan District, were declared under state of calamity due to the flashfloods brought about by the localized thunderstorm on Wednesday evening, August 28.

Bustillo said despite CDDRMO’s effort of providing warning signals and advisories to the community, there were still families who failed to evacuate.

According to the records of City Social Services and Development Office, as of August 29, a total of 3,559 families or a total of 17,759 individuals were affected from last Wednesday’s flooding.

Trending

No stories found.

Just in

No stories found.

Branded Content

No stories found.
SunStar Publishing Inc.
www.sunstar.com.ph