Lawmakers grilled a Department of Budget and Management (DBM) official on Wednesday, Feb. 22, about how much the government would need to spend to create the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR).
Batangas 4th District Rep. Lianda Bolilia and Batangas 2nd District Rep. Jinky Luistro led the queries into the financial aspect of creating the agency, which would be leading the management of disaster response, and risk reduction in the country.
“Do you have any idea now how much this will cost? I mean the creation of DDR to the national government?,” Bolilia asked the DBM representative.
However, the budget official replied that “I don’t have the data with me right now.”
While Bolilia underscored the importance “that everyone here supports the bill,” she stressed that “the most important support should be coming from you because you are the who is going to fund this.”
“Without your support, all of these will be nothing,” she said.
Leyte 4th District Rep. Richard Gomez lamented that the hearing would be a “waste of time” if the government agencies, which stand as resource speakers, don’t have the relevant data with them.
Malasakit at Bayanihan Party-list Rep. Anthony Golez Jr., who will chair the technical working group (TWG) for the disaster resilience committee, agreed with his colleagues.
“It is very difficult for us to keep on pursuing things like these or bills like these if we are not given any clarity as to how much we are going to be spending on creating a department. It is very difficult for us to keep on having this mental gymnastics if we don’t have concrete numbers in mind because at the end of the day, the resources are being budgeted by Congress,” he said.
The exchange came after the DBM representative provided an estimated minimum amount of P1.05 billion for the operations of the DDR.
“The way I see it, the budget you are presenting to us pertains to the budget needed by the department for it to operate,” Luistro commented.
Department of Science and Technology (DOST) Secretary Renato Solidum Jr. suggested looking at the cost of the creation of the DDR in a different way.
“May we request we look at the perspective of the primary role of having the DDR is to reduce the impact to lives, livelihood and businesses. So, in the long term, we also need to look at what will be the return,” he explained.
“We would actually have more return, something intangible because we will not see the disasters that will happen. I think when we look at the costing, we should take that into account,” the official added.