EDITORIAL - Efficiency, not bloat

With the rightsizing program at the top of his legislative priorities, it’s good to know that President Marcos has dumped proposals to create a Department of Disaster Resilience. The President announced his decision last Thursday as he met with officials involved in the disaster response efforts in earthquake-hit Northern Luzon.

The proposed department was supposed to consolidate under one roof all agencies involved in prevention, emergency response and mitigation efforts during natural calamities and other major disasters. But any new department will still require its own offices with satellites nationwide, its own bureaucracy as well as “five undersecretaries and so many assistant secretaries” with their own staff, as pointed out by the President’s sister, Sen. Imee Marcos.

Agreeing with his sister, the President said that instead of “another whole department,” he preferred “a specialist agency” that will oversee the various aspects of disaster response and mitigation. The country has the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, which is supervised by the Office of Civil Defense under the Department of National Defense. The NDRRMC works with the regional DRRM offices nationwide.

In recent years, there has been a growing propensity, in both the executive and legislative branches, to respond to a problem by creating a new executive department. The new office is then packed with people benefiting from political patronage, with little improvement in services and in addressing the problem.

Even if an entirely new executive department is created for disaster resilience, other state agencies will continue to carry out their own programs for disaster prevention, emergency response, relief and recovery. These include local government units as well as the departments of environment and natural resources, the interior and local government, social welfare, national defense and health.

What has always been needed is better coordination to improve disaster prevention, response, relief and mitigation. The objective must be efficiency, not additional bureaucratic bloat.