Albay prepares for typhoon season

LEGAZPI CITY, Philippines  — Albay will retrain its communities on disaster risk reduction (DRR)ahead of typhoon season to better prepare them for sudden weather disturbances.

Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said the province would also modify its warning communications and response strategy.

He instructed the Albay Provincial Safety and Emergency Management Office (Apsemo) and the Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) Federation to start implementation of annual trainings on DRR and disaster response management.

“With tropical storm Bebeng signaling an apparently earlier start of the typhoon season, I have instructed Apsemo head Cedric Daep and ABC federation president JP Lee to accelerate the annual training program,” Salceda said.

To enhance their disaster warning system, Salceda had also ordered Apsemo to buy 15,000 SIM cards for barangay officials, backed up by an Inforboard in the operations center.

With the system, Apsemo will be able to send advisories to vulnerable areas and allow villages to give feedbacks during disaster operations.

Salceda said he has Pagasa to issue forecasts five days before a typhoon reaches Philippine Area of Responsibility (PAR) which he referred as the “5 + PAR Framework,” to give authorities lead time in devising and implementing response strategies. Weathermen normally issue warnings only when a weather disturbance enters Philippine jurisdiction.

Salceda pioneered the preemptive evacuation and zero casualty strategy in disaster response in the country. The United Nations has named him UN Senior Global Champion on Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and DRR. He has instituted novel improvements in Albay’s disaster response strategy to ensure its capability in achieving zero casualty, efficiently utilizing village officials in its warning system.

He said preemptive evacuation is still the better option to achieve zero casualty. This was implemented with some 39,120 people involved even ahead of Pagasa’s typhoon Bebeng warning, but even then Albay still sustained casualties.