Technology’s role in disaster preparedness underscored

CEBU CITY – Nearly 200 delegates from local government DRRMOs, agencies and the academe gathered at the Waterfront Hotel on Monday to tackle natural hazards and the use of technology in the Disaster Conference Cebu-Resiliency + Technology (DISCONCERT) 2018.

According to UP-Cebu Chancellor Liza Corro, the conference discussed the natural hazards present in the Metro Cebu areas and the rest of Cebu province.

It will also introduce all available untapped technology and services offered by the government- academe partnership, research and development projects and to solicit the commitment of various units and agencies in achieving disaster-resilient communities, Corro added.

Commissioner Noel Garlan of the Climate Change Commission (CCC), in his keynote message said there is a greater need today to have convergence of plans and programs relative the environment and climate change.

Garlan said for the local government units to understand the dangers in front of them, there is an urgent need to integrate every local plans to anticipate and prepare to reduce disaster damage and death.

“We have to understand the dangers in front of us by quantifying those dangers in terms of intensity and frequency,” Garlan added.

He said that we have to deal with climate change by thinking ahead by putting science into it because climate change can be a realistic picture of the disasters that might happen in your area.

“We hope to make it happen here in Cebu, we need to do it upstream to downstream, that’s what convergence is all about, Garlan added.

All the plans and programs of the national and the local governments as well as the other stakeholders must be integrated and made part of the process and to use all scientific research-based data, technology and gadgets to prepare and anticipate disasters, hazards and changes in climate, Garlan pointed out.