DSWD, USAid team up for disaster response

THE Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) took on a proactive approach to improving the agency’s disaster response capabilities in Mindanao by exploring possible partnerships with the United States Agency for International Development (USAid).

DSWD Secretary Rexlon “Rex” Gatchalian addressed possible partnerships with USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator (DAA) for Asia Sara Borodin and USAid Mission Director Ryan Washburn during their joint visit to the National Resource Operations Center (NROC) in Pasay City on Thursday.

Gatchalian said that part of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s directive is for the national government to be proactive in disaster response, given that some local government units (LGUs) continue to face challenges in responding quickly to the needs of their constituents during calamities.

“The paradigm now, which the President said, is that he wants a sustained effort from the national government during times of disasters,” Gatchalian said.

As a result, the DSWD, according to Secretary Gatchalian, has established “close to 700 warehouses, which we call last-mile warehouses,” and is looking at additional disaster response infrastructure.

Explaining that the Department’s budget is primarily allocated to grants to its clients, Gatchalian emphasized the significance of the USAid officials’ warehouse visit as an opportunity to investigate potential funding sources for establishing facilities that will increase the Department’s disaster response capacity.

“We get in trouble when we want to build a facility; let’s say in Mindanao, we have to do the lobbying, which I am doing right now. Now that we have land, we have to do the lobbying,” Gatchalian said.

“It is always in terms of how much you can give people, not what you can build. That’s our restriction in terms of budget,” he added.

Gatchalian stated that it is past time to create a large storage facility in the Southern Philippines since “Mindanao has become a hotbed for climate change.”

The warehouse tour at the NROC was facilitated by the World Food Programme-Philippines (WFP) and is part of USAid DAA Borodin’s country visit to the Philippines, which aims to understand the Philippine government’s disaster response capacity and recognize the impactful partnerships formed through grants to the WFP.