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Monday, February 27, 2017
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REPUBLIC Act 10121, the “Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010,” was 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 Zamboanga crisis in September 2013 and 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 have to receive help – financial, housing, livelihood, etc. Rehabilitation was painfully slow, it has become a disaster in itself!
Two years after “Yolanda”, the World Risk Report 2015 published by United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security ranked the Philippines third in the World Risk Index, only after Vanuatu and Tonga. The German-watch Global Climate Risk Index 2016, meanwhile, identified our country at fourth in most affected countries from 1995 to 2014 in the Long-Term Climate Risk Index.
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, no such evaluation had 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.
The frustrating post-“Yolanda” rehabilitation debacle must not happen again. 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” and the alarming rate of climate change.
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