‘Chandelier’ effect

The magnitude 7.0 earthquake that shook us early morning last Wednesday turned out to be a timely wake-up call. The earth-shaking incident around 8:43 a.m. especially roused the members of the new Congress to finally act on the urgent need for a fast, quick acting disaster resiliency body.

Building “disaster resilience” is the term used to describe the process of helping countries and communities to be better prepared to withstand and rapidly recover from catastrophic shocks and aftermath of natural or man-made calamities such as an earthquake, drought, flood or cyclone.

A day after the earthquake, Abra became the first provincial visit of the newly installed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. using a Philippine Air Force C-130 plane. Along with some top government officials, President Marcos also presumably carried with him relief goods on the same military cargo aircraft. After an aerial inspection of the earthquake damages in the Ilocos region, President Marcos convened later in Abra where he listened to briefing reports from the officials of both national and local government agencies.

Participating in the briefing, presidential sister Senator Imee Marcos obviously took the opportunity to highlight the need to pass into law a long pending bill that sought to create a full-blown Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR). Patterned after the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in the United States, the Senator raised this call for her colleagues in the 19th Congress to frontload the passage into law of such measure.

The Senator who coyly calls herself as “super Ate” and their maternal first cousin House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez joined the briefing in Abra along with several other Ilocos region solons. Reacting to the exchange between Sen. Imee and Romualdez, President Marcos, who was once both a Congressman and Senator quipped: “We can now even able to legislate.”

Citing her own DDR bill, Sen. Marcos recalled when she was once the Governor of Ilocos Norte on the usual lack of direction and coherence in addressing calamity relief operations. Despite so many government agencies involved, she rued, there is still so much delay and shortage of relief assistance to calamity victims. Thus, she stressed, this bolsters the need for a FEMA-like structure as super body solely in charge of directing rescue and relief operations.

At the House of Representatives, the FEMA-patterned DDR bill is principally authored by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda. A staunch climate change advocate, Salceda called upon anew his fellow lawmakers to act expeditiously on this proposed measure that never got off the legislative mills since he first filed this in the 18th Congress. He refiled this bill last June 30.

Under his revised bill, Salceda pointed out, the proposed FEMA-like set up will replace the Council-type mandate of this body that would be placed under the Office of the President. In this way, he cited, it would conform with the “right-sizing” policy direction of President Marcos, Salceda renewed this call to his fellow lawmakers to manifest their full support to this vital measure by prioritizing its passage into law at the soonest possible time.

When the quake took place for nearly half a minute, Salceda was seated on the press conference table preparing to speak before our Kapihan sa Manila Bay breakfast news forum. We hold it every Wednesday at the second floor of the iconic building of the Café Adriatico in Remedios Circle in Malate, Manila. Then the lamps suddenly began to swing for no reason and the wooden floor sounded as if it was breaking up by some extreme force.

At least after the earthquake, legislators are now all espousing the urgency of the DDR bill.

It was among the urgent administration priority bills of former president Rodrigo Duterte that the past two Congresses ignored. The proposed DDR seeks to bring together all essential functions and mandates currently scattered among various disaster-related agencies under the umbrella of the existing National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC). Formerly known as the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), the NDRRMC is a working group of various government, non-government, civil sector and private sector organizations.

Administered by the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) under the Department of National Defense (DND), the NDRRMC was created under Republic Act (RA) 10121 signed on May 27, 2010. This law was passed and approved after 21 years of revisions and re-filing in several Congresses.

The bill on the proposed creation of the DDR, however, was not among the 19 bills identified in the maiden state of the nation address (SONA) of President Marcos. The earthquake also affecting the nearby Ilocos Norte – the home province of the Marcoses – happened two days after the President’s SONA in the joint opening sessions of the 19th Congress at the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City last Monday.

But in his press conference at Malacanang a few hours after the earthquake, President Marcos conceded there is indeed an urgent need for the 19th Congress to act with dispatch on the proposed DDR bill. “The dangers that the effects of climate change present are different. That’s why we need a specialist agency,” the President pointed out.

Once certified as urgent administration bill, the creation of such “specialist agency” on effective disaster response could be on fast track lane in Congress.

Two-decades long of having lived in Malacanang gave now President Marcos a very good sense of detecting on strong earthquakes. Asked where he was during the tremor, the 64-year old President replied he was in his office at the Palace. Then he pointed to the huge chandeliers that adorn its high ceilings. “Yun ang guide namin dito sa Palasyo. ‘Pag narinig mo ‘yung chandelier na kumakalansing, then ibig sabihin may lindol,” he quipped and sheepishly smiled.

He is referring to the three large wood and glass chandeliers that illuminate the Palace halls that were carved and installed in 1979 by the famous Juan Flores of Betis, Pampanga. The jingling sound is the chandelier effect of earthquake.