IT WAS reported early this week that as of Jan. 3, 16,935 typhoon “Odette”-displaced families (84,458 individuals) were still in various evacuation centers in the provinces of Iloilo and Negros Occidental. This is lamentable.
We are reminded of Republic Act 10121, the “Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010,” approved on May 27, 2010 to strengthen the country’s institutional capacity for disaster risk reduction and management, and build local communities’ resilience to disaster and climate change impacts.
While many natural and manmade calamities had hit the country since the Act was passed – including the Bohol earthquake in October 2013 – it was super typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) that tested the legal and institutional capabilities of both the national and local governments as established by the Act, and exposed the disconnect between the provisions of the Act and the realities and dynamics on the grounds. Indeed, three years after the super typhoon struck, many displaced people in the Visayas still hadn’t received help – financial, housing, livelihood, etc. Rehabilitation was painfully slow, it has become a disaster in itself!
We hope there won’t be a repeat of this in the case of those displaced by “Odette”.
A review of our disaster management law to cope with the “new normal” must be in order. Cyclones and other calamities will likely hit us again and again. We must find ways to improve the law and its implementation. While the law provides for a congressional sunset review five years after its passage, had evaluation taken place?
There is also a necessity to evaluate the performance of government agencies in implementing the provisions of the Act and to determine whether the mandates were carried out effectively, and if the mechanisms and processes established are effectual.
There is, thus, a need to revisit the Act to determine its effectivity and relevance when it comes to the country’s response to the challenges of the “new normal”. The frustrating post-“Yolanda” rehabilitation debacle must not happen again.
