City DRRMO shares best practices

VISITING Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Offices from the provinces of Pangasinan, Bulacan and Masbate get baptism of fire with the best practices of the Davao City DRRMO which records to have the first operating 911 in thecountry.

Dan Jorge Garcia, a CDRRMO trainer, speaking before a select team of disaster managers and operation officers from the three provinces, said that the advantage of Davao City is that the city government has mainstreamed DRR in its Top 10 priorities.

“If we wanted to have a better and effective delivery of our services to the public, DRR must be mainstreamed in our priorities,” he said.

“Actually, we are now in the process of establishing the Davao City Integrated Communications System as well as the construction of satellite stations in our effort to expand and upgrade the Central 911 System,” he said.

Garcia’s lecture centered on “Road to Achieving Effective Disaster Response Team” wherein he emphasized the programs of the city government as well as its coordinative efforts in training the communities in preparing for disasters and calamities.

The visiting DRRMOs are attending the fourday Risk Management and Strategic Leadership Training which started on Feb. 7 at Hotel Elena.

The event, hosted by FAPBEMS Consultancy, brought together the DRRMOs to promote and develop community-based risk management, best practices in Singapore

and local counterparts on disasterrelated mitigations and most especially hands-on exercises in this capability – building activity.

One of the speakers is Singapore-based Anita Fernandez-Rios, who has more than 30 years of working experience as an engineer, management system auditor, consultant, trainer and senior manager in the fields of health and safety, environmental protection, risk and crisis management, and business continuity.