THE MOUNTAINEER

Disaster management as public safety measure
Edison L. Baddal

BONTOC, Mountain Province -- It’s rainy season once again and despite PAG-ASA’s warning that the country will have less rainfall by about 40 to 80 percent than what we used to have, landslides, road washouts and worst, flashfloods, are experienced whenever the season comes around.

Along the Halsema highway, strong rain usually creates chasms, gullies, ruts and streams in unconcreted sections during heavy rainfall. During such instances, drainage canals are inadequate to divert the flow of runoff water from mountainsides so roads are often inundated during heavy downpour.

We are now constantly bombarded with intermittent rainfall brought by the southwest and northeast monsoon rains and not a few mudslides stalled smooth transportation in this main artery to Mt Provinces.

Things have always worsened when typhoons, storms or tropical depression struck causing a lot of destruction and damage to property and lives. The destructive forces of nature are part of the reality that people have to contend with and adapt to every time these strike.

This is because our country unfortunately belongs to the tropical zone which is characterized by hot, humid summers and cool, rainy months in the second half of the year. Situated also in the typhoon belt, an average of 19 to 20 typhoons or tropical depressions enter our area of responsibility yearly.

Sitting astride the Pacific “ring of fire” or seismic belt, temblors or earthquakes are among our country’s frequent visitors. Added to the sinister threat of disaster is the presence of volcanoes which could be found in the three major islands of the country. With about 10 to 11 active volcanoes dotting the archipelago, volcanic eruptions have caused destruction to properties and lives.

With the country having one of the longest coastlines in Asia, giant tidal waves have inundated and damaged coastal communities on several occasions. Being always at the mercy of disasters due to unfavorable location and vulnerability to various natural geologic hazards, the Philippines is practically disaster-prone.

The foregoing facts necessitate the preparedness of the country, notably its Local Government Units against any eventuality or catastrophe. The perilous natural setting of the country behooves national and local officials to have effective programson disaster management.

This is a comprehensive program on disaster which consists of activities designed to maintain control over disaster and emergency situations. It provides a general framework for helping people imperiled or under the risk of a disaster in order to mitigate its deleterious effects.

In all, it is the dynamics in counterbalancing the threats of disasters and ways to mitigate the actual damages of a disaster. Virtually encompassing the broad range of activities and attendant situations which occur before, during and after the occurrence of a disaster, the primordial goal of disaster management is the reduction or avoidance, to the most possible extent, of the human, physical and economic losses that will be suffered by individuals, societies or by the country at large in the event of a disaster.

Needless to say, having a comprehensive package of pre-disaster PPAs will ensure reduced casualties to properties and lives and attendant collateral damages during an actual disaster. Coordinative, collaborative and synchronized activities should be followed as guides and reference in a disaster.

The “disaster preparedness plan” is a crucial component of disaster management as it contains and covers all PPAs that should be attended to in the three phases of disaster management.

Though all the three phases are equally important, the pre-disaster phase is the most critical. Pre-disaster activities being mostly preventive in nature, risk management in relation with pre-disaster phase, is the most critical element in disaster management.

This can be deduced from the fact that this element involves the identification of threats, determination and evaluation of the probability of its occurrence and calculation of the potential impact of any impending hazard on the communities exposed to the risk. It also involves hazard and vulnerability mapping.

Measures should be identified on how to pre-empt the occurrence of hazards with focus on the crucial and relevant actions that should be attended to during the initial strikes of a disaster. This is to reduce the risk and thwart more potential damages that will by a disaster.

Measures like the construction of dams, flood control structures or sluices or the installation of diversion canals away from populated areas will go a long way in precluding substantial damages.

It is thus that the significance of disaster management in the multilateral aspects of community life or the LGU at large need not be emphasized as disasters often result in a breakdown of morale and a humongous disruption in socio-economic activities of affected people.

Given that local officials’ chief concern is the general welfare of the citizenry, disaster management concerns should be integrated in LGU plans especially in the formulation of a comprehensive land use plans, the mother of all LGU plans.

As a concept, the CLUP subdivides the territorial coverage of an LGU into different land uses like commercial, agricultural, residential, industrial among others. In this regard, each LGU should seriously activate their disaster coordinating councils.

Being charged with formulating measures to counteract the effects of disasters through the provisions of the Disaster Preparedness Plan, the body should be functional all year round. With diverse disasters hitting communities every now and then, the DPP should be updated at least once a year to incorporate new developments in disaster or emergency situations in their jurisdiction.

This includes initiatives and measures to counteract or preclude the deleterious effects of El Nino or La Nina.
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LGUs should use their five percent calamity fund provided under RA 7160 for pro-active measures that will enhance disaster response mechanisms. This fund should be thoroughly utilized in making the different elements of disaster management work effectively as part of dynamics in the development process of an LGU.

The complementary elements of disaster management like risk management, loss management, control of events, equity of assistance, resource management and impact reduction, should be properly effected and coordinated in handling emergency situations or disasters through proper utilization of the calamity fund.

Proper utilization of the fund should includes purchase of disaster-related equipment aside from conduct of trainings and public dissemination activities. More importantly, part of the fund should also be used in building a disaster operations center.

As the nerve center for all activities on disaster management, it should be equipped with facilities like the radio communication center, computer room, media center and storage spaces for logistics. It should also serve as the venue for meetings of the DCCs and workshops. Disaster management permeates every aspect of the development process of an LGU so that a DOC will certainly enhance said process as one of its mechanisms.

On this score, a disaster management coordinator should be designated to man the center with a competent technical staff on a 24 hour basis. On the whole, investing in facilities for proper handling of disasters will definitely spell the difference between avoidance or reduction in loss or damages to lives and properties in the event of a disaster even as it also avoids confusion and temerarious acts of people that will worsen a disastrous situation.

It also results in faster rehabilitation of damaged areas and recovery of affected persons. Essentially, disaster management is considered an effective public safety measure as it is concerned with protecting the public from threats caused by crime, traffic congestion, accidents, flashfloods, other disasters, hazards, toxic wastes, red tide, dengue fever among others.

With the its goal of keeping people safe away from areas vulnerable to fortuitous, unexpected and unforeseen hazard, disaster management then is itself a public safety measure. By all means, LGUs should by all means consider the development of strategies on disaster prevention and mitigation to keep the public safe from the scourge or threat of a disaster.