IN HIS fourth State of the Nation Address, President Duterte called for the establishment of a Department of Resilience in preparation for future natural calamities. It’s a wise move.
This particular department would be concentrating on disaster risk reduction and management, a function that is currently scattered in several agencies such as the Office of Civil Defense, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, even the Department of National Defense, Philippine Coast Guard and Philippine National Police, among others.
With a Department of Resilience, efforts to protect our people would be more focused, especially the most vulnerable sectors.
The reality is that disasters affect about 200 million people all over the world yearly, half of them women or girls whose special needs and concerns are not properly addressed, putting them at greater risk during disasters.
Challenges will never go away and in most communities, there are continuing barriers to women empowerment. The vulnerability of women to disasters is among the challenges that must be addressed with urgency.
There is a need to ensure the security and well-being of women and girls through gender-sensitive and risk-sensitive development policies, plans and programs which involve women as equal partners in disaster risk reduction planning and humanitarian response.
But there are other sectors more vulnerable to disasters, such as children, the elderly, persons with disabilities and indigenous people, whose special concerns must be given proper attention so that they become part of the solution to reduce risks and build resilience. These sectors are disproportionately affected by disasters because they have distinct needs that are not sufficiently addressed. We have to realize that they can also make positive contributions to disaster risk reduction and management if we only give them the necessary support.
We should also recognize the role of children and young people in building disaster-resilient communities. When we create an enabling environment for children to witness and practice disaster risk reduction early on in life, we inculcate in them a level of disaster preparedness that will be passed on to the succeeding generations when they become adults.
When we empower both men women, and capacitate the young and old, persons living with disabilities and ethnic groups, we reduce their vulnerability to disasters. Building resilience should be everybody’s attitude. With this kind of mindset, we can promote the scaling up of existing government programs to rectify the social and economic structures that breed disaster risk and trap the poor and vulnerable citizens in the vicious cycle of risk.
