Capulong, Luis Raphael M.

2019-0709

“Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010”

As a country which has always been ravaged by storms, this act is very much needed in our country. It
aims to have a holistic, comprehensive, integrated, and proactive in lessening the socioeconomic and
environmental impacts of disasters including climate change, and promote the involvement and
participation of all sectors and all stakeholders concerned, at all levels, especially the local community
since the national government cannot respond simultaneously to different localities affected by the
calamity.

This law’s main objective is to reduce casualty and implement a quick response to those disaster stricken
areas, but despite this law nothing significant has change, our risk management has always and
consistently been plagued with controversies. It has become a cradle of publicity hungry bureaucrats
and worse it is being politicize which dramatically affects the time of recovery of the disaster striken
areas.

In my opinion, for this law to succeed, politicians should not intervene with the response team and let it
act in their own discretion, as not to influence the response priority of the response team. The news has
showed us the unreliable response of the different government agencies collaborating with each other,
pointing fingers on who is the incompetent one, thus resulting to more suffering of the people in
disaster stricken areas. There should be a separate agency in charge of disaster risk management, and
during calamities that agency must have the right to direct command to other agencies and the L.G.Us
on how they would handle the situation and to avoid confusion.