Manila hosts int'l conference on disaster preparedness

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines will host a two-day international conference on disaster management on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority said Monday.

MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino said the agency is looking forward to hosting the 11th Asian Crisis Management Conference (ACMC), a gathering of crisis managers and disaster experts from major cities in Asia that will tackle the region’s disaster preparedness.

Tolentino said the conference, which will be held on July 10 and 11 at the Crowne Plaza, Manila Galleria, will coincide with the country’s National Disaster Consciousness Month this July.

"This will be a very fruitful conference because we have so much to learn from our Asian neighbors in terms of disaster risk reduction programs and crisis management. We all believe that disaster preparedness should be a concerted effort among nations,” he said.

With the theme “Recovering from a Devastating Disaster and Moving Forward: A Major Asian City’s Rehabilitation and Recovery Efforts”, the event will be participated in by more than a hundred experts from 13-member-cities of the Asian Network of Major Cities (ANMC) 21.

ANMC21, which organizes the annual ACMC, is a group of Asia’s largest capital cities working together on issues such as urban planning, sustainability and crisis management. It was advocated by then Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara in August 2000.

ANMC21 member-cities are Bangkok, Delhi, Hanoi, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo, Tomsk, Ulaanbaatar, and Yangon.

World Bank is also co-hosting the conference and will send its regional disaster managers to participate and present its report entitled “Developing A Disaster Recovery Framework: Bringing It All Together.”

Tolentino said each participating city, including Manila, will have presentations on their current strategic approaches on disaster mitigation, such as flood management and earthquake risks reduction.

In 2011, the MMDA created the Metropolitan Manila Emergency Volunteer Corps, a volunteer program to develop community-based groups of volunteers in the 17 local government units of Metro Manila.

Tolentino said the 1,470-strong MMEVC has assisted the MMDA in its various programs and projects through manpower augmentation during special operations and rescue efforts, training and demonstration drills on search and rescue, and Manila Bay cleanup, among others.