Review on disaster management law for possible amendment undertaken

TACLOBAN CITY — Dialogues with various sectors around the country is now being undertaken to draw out comments and recommendations for possible amendments on Republic Act 10121, or the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Law.

Adelina Alvarez, lead convener of the DRR Network-Philippines — a member of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council — said her group has been seeking for some amendments to the law instead of an earlier proposal to have it repealed.

The DRRN-Philippines the other day met with representatives of civil society groups and local government units in Basey and Marabut towns in Samar where they discussed opinions and recommendations about some provisions of the law, based on the experiences the people had when Yolanda struck the province two years ago.

Alvarez and her group were in Leyte yesterday to continue the discussions with other organizations in the province. The dialogues have been in coordination with the Center for Community Journalism and Development, she told The FREEMAN.

Alvarez said the “sunset” review of RA 10121, as allowed by the law itself, was intended to determine how it has been implemented and what should be enhanced or amended, in the face of massive destruction and deaths in the Yolanda tragedy in 2013.

“The Yolanda devastation made the review of the law imperative, The law took effect in 2010 but there was a quandary on why the destruction of typhoons Yolanda, Ruby, Pablo and Seniang still happened. This is how we in the civil society organization could help to know the answer. We want to get feedback or inputs from the people at the grassroots on how faithfully the law is implemented,” Alvarez said.

The DRRN-P had already conducted a series of dialogue in Regions 2 (Cagayan Valley), 5 (Bicol), 7 (Central Visayas), Caraga and the Cordillera, Davao City and this time, Eastern Visayas region. Through it all, “we realized that the law is not quite implemented. As to why, this is what we are trying to find out,” said Alvarez.

So far, among those noted by the DRRN-P needing thorough review were governance structure, participation of civil society organizations in the DRRMCs, allocation and utilization of DRRM funds, planning process and how the LGUs could come up with their respective climate change action plan.

The group further found that there has been lack of knowledge of RA 10121, lack of expertise, completion of DRRMC membership, creation of fully operational DRRMC offices and appointment of a focal person who has the capacity to lead the disaster risk reduction and management plan.

“We will bring the outputs to Congress in June and July this year in policy-recommendation format,” Alvarez said, adding that her group are now banking on legislators in Congress to act on the recommendations, otherwise it will present these to the NDRRMC for consideration.

The group of Alvarez was also optimistic that the media, being a potent tool in information dissemination, will greatly help in this advocacy. “We can only move when the people know,” Alvarez added.