ILOILO City – The recent typhoon “Ursula” showed which local government units (LGUs) were prepared to respond to natural disasters and which were ill-equipped, according to Director Jose Roberto Nuñez of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in Western Visayas.
All LGUs must make their areas resilient to disasters and the first step is make sure they have the capability to respond to disasters such as flooding and landslides, among others, he stressed.
Nuñez suggested that LGUs invest in disaster response equipment.
He cited as example the municipality of Batad in Iloilo province where a family of six fleeing “Ursula” was swept away by raging floodwater when the typhoon struck on Christmas Day.
“Meron palang problema doon sa taas. Ganito ang sitwasyon ng bundok ng Batad. Sa mga ganito, kailangan ng communication and equipment,” said Nuñez during a recent meeting of the Regional Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (RDRRMC).
Consolidated data from the RDRRMC showed “Ursula” displaced 338,335 families (1,461,165 persons) in Western Visayas. Three provinces, one city and 23 municipalities declared a state of calamity.
RDRRMC also counted 226,268 damaged houses in the provinces of Aklan, Antique, Capiz, and Iloilo.
“Dapat meron tayong action plan, contingency bawat LGU,” said Nuñez.
OCD would be checking each LGU’s disaster risk reduction and management plans.
Nuñez said he won’t approve plans of LGUs which have not invested in disaster response equipment.
“There will be a checklist,” said Nuñez.
The equipment LGUs have to invest in should depend on the kind or type of hazard that poses risk to their areas, he stressed.
For those prone to flooding, they could invest in search and rescue equipment.
“We have trained personnel. They could not just invest in equipment without the properly trained personnel,” said Nuñez.
The OCD director acknowledged that he had no authority to sanction LGUs that fail to invest in disaster response equipment thus he is leaving it to the Department of the Interior and Local Government to take action.
For her part, Director Ro-Ann Bacal of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) in Western Visayas urged LGUs to identify “critical areas” where the resources of the national government are necessary.
“We need to go where the attention needs to be hastened. With the report of the provinces, we hope you can guide us where the critical areas are so we can also plan out where we will be able to assist the LGU,” she said.
Three provinces of Western Visayas incurred millions of pesos of damage from “Ursula.”
The agri-fishery sector initially estimated losses at P1.387 billion while the Department of Public Works and Highways estimated the damage to infrastructure at P48.9 million./PN
