Japanese disaster management experts have presented their best practices and plans in responding to natural calamities to their Philippine counterparts during a dialogue on resilience building.
The Philippine delegation is led by National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Chairperson (NDRRMC) and Department of National Defense (DND) Officer in Charge, Sec Carlito G. Galvez Jr. and NDRRMC Executive Director and Civil Defense Administrator Usec. Ariel F Nepomuceno.
In a statement, the NDRRMC said the Philippine delegation was also briefed by their Japanese counterparts on their policies, best practices on resilience-building strategies and disaster operations.
"With flood events being emergencies common to both the Philippines and Japan, the Japan DM Ministry presented their existing flood mitigation programs as well as their local response system with focus on search and rescue operations," the statement read.
"The conduct of capacity building activities on flood control and, in the light of the recent earthquake disaster in Turkiye, collapsed structure search and rescue were also discussed in the dialogue," it added.
Galvez and Nepomuceno are part of the delegation of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s five-day State Visit to Japan which started Feb. 8.
Japan has been a long-time partner of the Philippines in the effort to strengthen disaster management system in the country through various capacity building activities.
The meeting was concluded with a formal exchange of tokens between the Philippine delegation and their Japanese counterparts.