House OKs bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience

The House of Representatives on Monday approved on final reading a bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR).

With 181 lawmakers voting in the affirmative and five in the negative, with two abstentions, the lower chamber approved House Bill No. 8165, which President Rodrigo Duterte and House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had pushed for.

Under the bill, the DDR would be the primary agency “responsible for leading, organizing and managing the national effort to reduce disaster risk, prepare for and respond to disasters, recover and rehabilitate, and build forward better after the occurrence of disasters.”

The Secretary of the DRR would lead the National Disaster Resilience Council, which would be composed of other secretaries from various key agencies such as the Department of Science and Technology, Department of Health and Department of Environment and National Resources, among others.

The DRR is also mandated to create the Climate and Disaster Research, Education and Training Institute within one year from the approval of the act.

This in collaboration with Higher Educational Institutions and private and State universities and colleges, which would serve as a “world-class center of excellence for learning and research in the field of disaster risk and vulnerability reduction and management and climate change adaptation.”

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The Department would also have the power to declare a state of calamity in specific areas.

 Once the bill is enacted to law, the Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration and the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology will be attached agencies to the DRR.

 The funding shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act.

In his third State of the Nation Address last July 23, Duterte urged Congress to pass a bill creating the said department to “bolster our resilience to the impact of natural disasters and climate change.” /ee

READ: Duterte urges Congress: Pass bill creating disaster management department