‘Zombie-like’ DRR bills

Just a week ago, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported about as much as P60.68 billion worth of economic losses due to natural extreme events and disasters that hit the country last year. The PSA noted with concern the total cost of damages to both public and private properties were up 27 percent bigger than those recorded from a year ago. The worst part of PSA data showed there were a total of 58,082 deaths due to natural extreme events and disasters last year.

As of this writing, the total damages and loss of lives from the devastation unleashed by typhoon “Paeng” are still coming in. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) has recommended to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (PBBM) to declare a year-long national state of calamity due to the impacts of Severe Tropical Storm Paeng (international name: Nalgae). The NDRRMC justified this, citing that 16 of 17 regions in the country were damaged by the 16th typhoon that visited us so far this year. From the outset, the President was hesitant but eventually agreed to look into this recommendation with a caveat: “There are areas that are not in a state of calamity.”

In a proclamation signed on Wednesday, PBBM placed under public state of calamity for six months the provinces in Calabarzon, Bicol, Western Visayas, and the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) where 61 of the total of 150 casualties from “Paeng” came from who perished from the landslides and flash floods. A declaration of a state of calamity allows local governments to use calamity funds “for rescue, recovery, relief and rehabilitation and for the continuous provision of basic services to the affected populations.” It will also put price controls on basic necessities and prime commodities to prevent profiteering.

A check done by The Star found out there are at least 20 bills filed at the House of Representatives alone, all of which are seeking to create a Department of Disaster Resilience (DRR). At the Senate, there are at least ten DRR bills filed. In a common “Whereas” clause, the authors of these DRR bills in the 19th Congress called out about our country’s vulnerability to all forms of natural calamities and disasters ranging from “super” typhoons to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

The husband-and-wife team of House Speaker Martin Romualdez and Yedda Marie Romualdez of Tingog party list had filed a version of their own DRR bill. The presidential first cousin earlier supported the idea of just creating instead a structure similar with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of the United States (US). Based in Washington D.C., the FEMA is currently attached to the US Department of Homeland Security, which also handles terrorist attacks and other man-made disasters.

Another author of DRR bill, neophyte lawmaker Quezon City 5th District Rep. Patrick Michael Vargas obviously tried to play on words in seeking to create a Department of Disaster Resiliency and Alertness Management, or DReAM for its acronym in his House Bill 2786. Apparently, Vargas is just trying to ride on how the  long acronym of NDRRMC is pronounced as N-dream-cee.

Levity aside, it has been scientifically established by our weather experts that the Philippines is among the “most exposed country to the world’s tropical storms that cross to our seas by an average of 20 typhoons a year.“

The bill on the proposed creation of the DDR, however, was not among the 19 priority bills identified in PBBM’s maiden state of the nation address (SONA).

Since PBBM assumed office at Malacanang in June this year, there had been two major earthquakes that literally crushed Abra. The first one was a magnitude 7.3 earthquake that triggered landslides and collapse of structures and old churches on July 27. Or this was just two days after PBBM delivered his SONA at the joint opening of the Senate and the Lower House. And just last month, Oct. 25, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake shook again Abra which our volcanologists described as a “stress-tension” related to the tremor three months ago.

In his first ever provincial visit, PBBM did an aerial inspection a day after the earthquake to check on the damages in the Ilocos region and also convened the local government officials in Abra. He brought along Speaker Romualdez and elder sister Senator Imee Marcos who renewed her pitch to pass into law her DRR bill. She noted with dismay though the DRR bills have languished in the past Congresses.

While she was once Governor of Ilocos Norte, Sen.Marcos recalled 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.

In a press conference at Malacanang a few hours after the first earthquake in Abra, President Marcos conceded there is indeed an urgent need for the 19th Congress to act with dispatch on the proposed DRR 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 proposed “specialist agency” on effective disaster response could be on fast track lane in the present Congress.

Principally authored by acknowledged climate change champion Albay Rep. Joey Salceda refiled in June the FEMA-patterned DRR bill. Salceda explained the proposed FEMA-like set up will revise the present Council-type mandate of the NDRRMC and would be placed instead to the Office of the President. In this way, he cited, it would conform to the “right-sizing” policy direction of PBBM.

Like the fictional undead, the DRR bills go back to life like zombies every time a disaster hits our country.

When both chambers of Congress resume their sessions on Monday after a month-long recess, they would hopefully enact to life these DRR bills.