MANILA, Philippines?Anger surfaced Monday over the Arroyo administration?s slow response to Saturday?s devastating floods.

?It?s plain incompetence of the leadership, and government was absent,? said Sen. Loren Legarda.

The National Disaster Coordinating Center (NDCC), she said, ?clearly has no action plan.?

Legarda called for a review of NDCC activities.

?Can they say they don?t have money or power (to mitigate the) effects of disasters? Of course not,? the senator said, pointing out that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has an annual P2-billion ?calamity fund.?

It may be time to create a separate department to oversee disaster management, Rep. Marcelino Teodoro of hard-hit Marikina City said, adding that the country cannot tolerate the NDCC?s slow response.

?I think this should be a wake-up call for everybody. The NDCC and the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) should be a separate department. We saw how they took so long to pull together. That cannot be,? Teodoro said in a phone interview.

The leftist labor group Kilusang Mayo Uno described the government?s disaster response and rescue strategy as ?ridiculously slow? and ?poor.?

KMU chair Elmer Labog cited the lack of rubber boats that should have been used to evacuate people threatened by rising floodwaters in the wake of Tropical Storm ?Ondoy? (international codename: Ketsana).

?What sticks out from the aftermath of Ondoy is that the Arroyo government is not prepared to handle such emergency situations. It is very clear that those who were stranded overwhelmingly outnumber available rubber boats and members of rescue teams,? he said in a statement.

Labog said the television and radio ads by Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr. on disaster preparedness proved a waste of taxpayers? money.

?Clearly, the government is not putting where its mouth is. All those infomercials that supposedly project disaster preparedness, especially those by Mr. Teodoro, is only as good as on-camera scenes,? Labog said.

Insulting public reminders

Labog also criticized as ?insulting? Teodoro?s public reminders on Saturday purportedly urging the public ?not to clog roads? and to avoid contributing to the heavy SMS traffic by avoiding texting.

?These stupid reminders show just how callous Teodoro is to those who are struggling to find ways to respond to stranded people, a preview of the horrible national policies he might implement if his unwanted presidency pushes through,? he said.

Lawmakers have been pushing for the passage of the disaster risk reduction and management bill, which would allow communities to be more prepared for natural calamities and other disasters.

The measure also seeks to make the NDCC as the main policymaking body when it comes to disaster risk management. It also aims to give the OCD corporate powers, among others.

Muntinlupa Rep. Rozzano Rufino Biazon asked Malacañang to certify the disaster risk management bill as urgent, warning about the possibility of another calamity in the midst of global warming and climate change.

Biazon also blamed the NDCC, chaired by the defense secretary, for the slow passage of the bill in the House of Representatives and called on the Palace to ?crack the whip? on the agency.

Biazon said the NDCC had been stalling on requests for its inputs on the bill.

?It has passed third reading in the Senate but is languishing in the committee level in the House due to the delayed response of the NDCC,? he said.

Massive gov?t failure

As the death toll from flash floods rose, analysts said the anger could damage the prospects of Secretary Teodoro, the administration?s candidate in the May presidential election.

?His 0.2 percent popularity could be zero by now,? political analyst and columnist Nelson Navarro said of Teodoro.

?There was a massive failure in government and the direction of management response,? said Mario Taguiwalo, president of the National Institute for Policy Studies think-tank.

?The root cause is you have a government whose predominant preoccupation is with graft and corruption?how to steal more money from the people,? Taguiwalo said.

?If your officials are not motivated to serve and just motivated to steal, then that?s the kind of response you get.? With a report from Reuters