MANILA — Malacañang, through the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office (PLLO), has transmitted to both houses of Congress an executive version of a bill seeking to create a new department that would quickly respond to the country’s natural disasters and ensure recovery.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the PLLO submitted on Monday the bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR) after having been approved by President Rodrigo R. Duterte and his Cabinet.
“The Presidential Legislative Liaison Office has transmitted yesterday to the Office of the Senate President and the House (of Representatives) Speaker the administration’s version of the bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience or DDR,” Roque said in a Palace briefing Tuesday.
He said the bill is “anchored on government’s experience with previous disasters,” among them was the Super Typhoon “Yolanda”, which struck the country in 2013.
He noted that the DDR will be guided by a disaster resilience framework that will deliver on the three key areas of disaster risk reduction, disaster preparedness and response, and recovery and building forward better.
According to the Palace spokesperson, the executive bill is a product of inter-agency work, which has also built on the salient points of pending bills in Congress.
“Once passed into law, the creation of the department will be a significant step towards attaining safe, adoptive and disaster-resilient communities by leading efforts to reduce the risk of natural hazards and the effects of climate change,” Roque said.
In an endorsement letter, the PLLO said the bill seeks to fulfill Duterte’s message in both his 2017 and 2018 State of the Nation Addresses (SONAs), where he called for the establishment of a department that will have full-time focus on natural hazards and climate change.
The PLLO also suggested that the executive bill be used as the basic draft at the committee-level and plenary deliberations considering Duterte’s endorsement.
One head in charge
Roque said that the proposed DDR will be different from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) because the former will have one person in charge.
The NDRRMC is a policy-making body tasked to formulate a national disaster risk reduction and management plan.
Although there is a current NDRRMC executive director — Ricardo Jalad — Roque said his work is merely “consultative.”
“I think the problem is they’re supposed to be consultative. So what they do is they consult, and when there is a national disaster and there is no one to consult with anyone, there’s paralysis ‘no. So this time, there is someone in charge,” Roque said.
“Ayaw niya iyong mga (The President doesn’t want any) ‘committee-committee’, gusto niya (he wants) someone is in charge. There will be one person calling the shots in case of disasters,” he added.
Roque said having one person in charge is a “big difference” since it would prevent the recurrence of the “Yolanda” experience, where there was a lack of leadership in providing disaster and relief assistance.
“That’s a big difference, because during the time of ‘Yolanda’, former secretary of DILG (Department of the Interior and Local Government) Mar Roxas kept on repeating, ‘No one’s in charge. No one is in charge.’ because under the current setup, no one is in charge,” he said.
Roque, however, acknowledged that there will have to be inter-agency work because the line agencies still have their respective mandates.
He added that the DDR will entail new budgetary allocation but did not give further details. (Azer Parrocha/PNA)
