A MAJOR earthquake will not ask whether a municipality is first-class or fourth-class before bringing down a building. Yet in Western Visayas, a trapped victim’s chance of being rescued may still depend heavily on whether the local government can afford the roughly P3 million needed to train a Collapsed Structure Search and Rescue (CSSR) team.
According to the Office of Civil Defense – Region 6, there is a shortage of responders trained to locate, reach and safely extract people buried under concrete, steel and debris after earthquakes, explosions, landslides or structural failures. And so far, only the Municipality of Pavia, Iloilo and San Jose, Antique have received specialized training. For a region composed of five provinces, that is a serious public-safety vulnerability.
Western Visayas knows how quickly disasters can overwhelm communities. Floods intensified by the southwest monsoon routinely force evacuations, suspend classes and work, and stretch local response units across Iloilo, Antique, Aklan, Capiz, and Guimaras. Because flooding is frequent, most LGUs have developed stronger Water Search and Rescue capability. But familiarity with one hazard must not create complacency toward another. Water-rescue equipment cannot free a child pinned beneath a collapsed classroom or reach families trapped under a pancaked commercial building.
The P3-million cost of a 14-day CSSR course is undeniably heavy, especially for fourth-class and lower-income municipalities. The training requires specialized equipment, technical instructors and realistic collapse simulations governed by strict safety standards. But cost explains the gap; it does not excuse government from closing it. Disaster preparedness is precisely where national, regional and provincial institutions must prevent fiscal inequality from becoming inequality in the right to survive.
The solution cannot be to tell every poor municipality to somehow find P3 million on its own. OCD, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, provincial governments, the Bureau of Fire Protection and the Philippine Army’s engineering units should consider establishing a funded, regionwide CSSR development program. Provinces can organize strategically located teams serving clusters of neighboring LGUs, with common equipment caches, interoperable communications and binding deployment protocols.
Regional planners must also identify population centers, hospitals, schools, public markets, old commercial districts and communities near active faults or unstable slopes, then position trained teams according to risk and realistic travel time. A rescue unit that arrives many hours after a collapse may be technically available but operationally too late.
Equipment procurement likewise cannot become a substitute for readiness. Hydraulic cutters, lifting bags, concrete saws and detection devices are useless when responders lack the skill to operate them safely amid unstable debris. Every procurement should therefore be tied to trained personnel, maintenance budgets, periodic drills and measurable response standards.
OCD-6’s plan to conduct more CSSR training before yearend is welcome, but the region needs a sustained system with clear targets, dedicated funding and public accountability. Western Visayas should know how many teams it requires, which LGUs remain uncovered and by what date those gaps will be eliminated.
Collapsed-structure rescue is expensive because failure is even more costly. When structures fall, the difference between preparation and improvisation is measured in lives. Western Visayas must build that capability now — before the next disaster turns a known shortage into an unforgivable tragedy.
