The Office of Civil Defense (OCD) spearheaded an inter-agency and multi-sectoral initiative to speed-up the recovery efforts and align the priorities to quickly rebuild the communities that were devastated by typhoon “Odette” in December 2021.
Undersecretary Ricardo Jalad, Administrator of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) and Executive Director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDDRMC), said the “Ready to Rebuild” (R2R) program is a specially designed capacity-building program to hasten the recovery and rehabilitation efforts in Odette-hit areas.
“Late last year, Typhoon Odette struck our country and affected regions MIMAROPA, 6, 7, 8, and 10 with damages so broad that combining support for recovery still seems challenging. However, this does not prevent us from delivering our best service and support that we can. These are the very kinds of scenarios that we have been preparing for,” Jalad said in a statement on Friday, Feb. 11.
“Early last year, in preparation for possible disasters or calamities, the OCD, in partnership with the World Bank, launched the Ready to Rebuild Training Program with the goal to speed up and improve the recovery process of affected areas in the aftermath of a disaster. The training also serves as a guide for the regional government agencies, local government units, and stakeholders in crafting their local rehabilitation and recovery plans,” he added.
To date, Jalad said that the Ready to Rebuild Program for local government units (LGUs) already had five training batches which were held among a total of 197 provinces, cities, and municipalities from all 17 regions.
This translates to 924 governors, mayors, DRRM managers, planning and budget officers, and other technical staff who have improved their capacity to deal with the aftermaths of disasters, he added.
The sixth batch of the R2R program will be held from February 21 to March 11, 2022. Local governments and designated participants are encouraged to register via bit.ly/R2RSignUpNow since there are only limited slots available.
Further, the disaster chief bared that a three-day Ready to Rebuild Executive Course was held last Jan. 12 to 14 and brought together more than 150 government officials and staff composed of disaster risk reduction and management experts, policy-makers, planners, and implementers across the country.
He said the Executive Course served as “a platform to review the rehabilitation and recovery process and discuss challenges in light of Typhoon Odette through the Ready to Rebuild Program lens.”
He said the Executive Course also gave the participants the opportunity to share experiences and best practices from different regions when it comes to building back better after calamities.
“Learning from the experience of Typhoon Yolanda where the government had to quickly produce a rehabilitation and recovery plan within a tight deadline, and now the same with Typhoon Odette, my key takeaway is that we really need a playbook for key stakeholders to rebuild resiliently and quickly,” said lawyer Lesley Jeanne Y. Cordero, World Bank Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist.
“We support OCD’s efforts to ensure that national government agencies and local governments are able to prepare for the aftermath of disasters in advance,” Cordero stated.
“I ask you to encourage as many affected provinces, cities, and municipalities as possible to participate in the Ready to Rebuild Program so you can assist them in developing their recovery plans, implementing reconstruction projects, and accessing and leveraging funding sources. These will help affected communities build back better and pursue a green, resilient, and inclusive recovery,” she added.
Typhoon Odette is regarded by the OCD as the most destructive storm to ever hit the country since Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2013.
It killed 407 people, majority of which was tagged as "unverified," while around 7.8 million people werre affected.