The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) can immediately replenish its Quick Response Fund (QRF), the Department of Justice (DOJ) said. 

In a legal opinion issued by Undersecretary Raul T. Vasquez on a query sought by Office of the Civil Defense Undersecretary Ariel f. Nepomuceno, who is executive director of NDRRMC, the DOJ said: “The provision of the law is fashioned in a way as not to require a restrictive application."

Nepomuceno raised legal concerns over Section 22(c) of Republic Act (RA) No. 10121, the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010, which states that the QRF replenishment is limited to 30 percent of the NDRRMC’s fund.

“We advise that the thirty percent (30%) allocation, of the NDRRM Fund identified and set aside as QRF or standby-fund merely provides the minimum allotment owing to the nature and purpose of the QRF,” said Vasquez.

“It is not a limit of such allocation for the specified purpose,” he said. 

Vasquez pointed out “the QRF is earmarked to immediately address situations and living conditions of people in communities or areas stricken by disasters, calamities, epidemics, or complex emergencies, and bringing such situations and living conditions of people to normalcy once again.”

“Without divesting importance to activities addressing disaster risk reduction or mitigation, prevention and preparedness activities like training of personnel, procurement of equipment, and capital expenditures, the law will become futile and ineffective for its avowed purposes and intentions when needed assistance for people in disaster in the affected areas are left to fend for themselves by reason of restrictive application of the law,” he said. 

“Laws are to be interpreted to give life to their provisions instead of denying their application,” he stressed.