Phl to host Asia-Europe disaster management meet

 MANILA, Philippines - Manila will host starting Wednesday the three-day Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), a Palace spokesman announced yesterday.

“The Philippines aims to contribute to the new global architecture that will embody new policies and principles on DRRM,” Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said in an interview over state-run radio dzRB.  

The June 4-6 ASEM Manila conference will be called the “Tacloban Declaration.”

According to Coloma, this event is a timely development considering that the decade-old Hyogo Framework of Action, previously adopted by ASEM as the global paradigm on DRRM, is about to end in 2015.

The theme for the ASEM Manila conference is “Post Haiyan: A Way Forward.” Haiyan is the international name of Super Typhoon Yolanda that devastated eastern Visayas on Nov. 8, 2013 that killed over 6,000 people.

Coloma said the conference is an initiative of President Aquino, who extended the invitation to his ASEM colleagues during the 9th ASEM summit in Vientiane, Laos in November 2012.

“This initiative has been adopted by 49 heads of state and government, the president of the European Union, and the secretary general of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) that comprise ASEM,” Coloma said.

Aquino will be the keynote speaker at the opening of the conference on June 5 while Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin would be making plenary statements during the conference.

They will be joined by Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman, Science Secretary Mario Montejo, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, National Economic and Development Authority director general Secretary Arsenio Balisacan, Education Secretary Armin Luistro and Secretary Panfilo Lacson of the Office of the Presidential Assistant on Recovery and Rehabilitation.

Prior to the plenary conference, the ASEM delegates will visit Tacloban City to meet with local government officials and other sectoral leaders.  

The delegates will also visit Bislig Elementary School in Tanauan, Leyte and Barangay Palo, which is the site of a resettlement project for families displaced by Yolanda.

Among the topics that will be discussed during the conference are the application of innovation, science and technology to policy practice; strengthening the role of the state and other disaster risk reduction management stakeholders in disaster response and coordination; improving the international response system through specialization and coordination; and recovering from disasters and rebuilding better communities.