VOTING 241-7, with one abstention, the House of Representatives on Tuesday, September 22, 2020, approved on third and final reading House Bill (HB) no. 5989 or the proposed “Disaster Resilience Act.”
The measure, which is principally authored by House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, seeks to establish the Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR) which would "serve as the primary government agency responsible for leading, organizing and managing the national effort to reduce disaster risk, prepare for and respond to disasters, recover and rehabilitate, and build forward better after the occurrence of disasters."
The measure will strengthen the capacity of local government units (LGUs) to collaboration with relevant national government agencies and other stakeholders to implement disaster risk reduction and management as well as climate change action plans, programs, projects, and activities.
It would also cover all natural hazards which include, among others, geological phenomena; hydrological, oceanographic, and meteorological phenomena; and climate variability or change with related hazards of compound events and cascading impacts.
"The Philippines is considered one of the nations ‘most at risk’ of being struck by disasters and recurring hazards, such as typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and landslides, due to its geographical location,” Cayetano said.
Albay Representative Joey Salceda, one of the authors of the bill, said the creation of the DDR will ensure that the country is able to anticipate and proactively respond to emergencies and disasters, which he expects to intensify with worsening climate conditions.
Salceda said the DDR will help the country deal with disasters and emergencies “not as unfortunate incidents whose impacts are beyond our control, but as risks that can be mitigated.”
“We can no longer deny the fact that climate change is real, that we are a volcanically and tectonically active country, and that we face several typhoons each year. Disasters are a fact of Philippine life,” Salceda said.
“But we can mitigate the human and socioeconomic costs of these disasters. DDR will help ensure that we have a full-time agency in charge of keeping us strong and ready for disasters,” he added. (SunStar Philippines)