Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda is confident that the incoming Marcos administration will finally produce a disaster response-focused agency, or at the very least a close approximation of it.
“President BBM (Bongbong Marcos) said it was his priority in a statement last April, and that he hopes to learn from how the Federal Emergency Management Agency coordinates (FEMA) with other agencies. He’s right about that," Salceda said in a statement late Monday night, June 6.
By "it", the Committee on Ways and Means chairman was referring to the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR), which he said the Philippines is in dire need of.
Such department, he said, will specialize in “surge capacity” to respond to what he calls “sudden-onset” emergencies.
Salceda renewed the call for the DDR amid questions on what the role of the national government should be in response to the recent phreatic eruption of Mount Bulusan in Sorsogon.
Salceda, who is also from Bicol, said that while he is certain that Sorsogon will be able to handle the concern, the event highlights “that the Philippines has some of the largest number of disaster events in the whole world,” which he noted was the reason for the creation of the new department.
“You also have the second largest number of disaster casualties in the world over the past twenty years. What do you do? Nothing?” the economist-solon said, hammering home his point.
"In fact, it does not need to be a full-fledged department. It can be something like the FEMA, as long as it can provide the necessary surge capacity to deal with sudden-onset emergencies like a volcanic eruption or like Odette, which only became a supertyphoon hours before landfall," he said.
“What matters is, nothing surprises the national government’s capacity to respond to big, sudden emergencies that local government simply cannot handle on its own," Salceda further said.
Salceda was the principal author and sponsor of the bill creating the DDR in the just-concluded 18th Congress.