Duterte: Speed up creation of Department of Disaster Resilience

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte has called on Congress to fast track the creation of a department that will solely focus on disaster and climate change resilience plans and programs.

“The Philippine experience has shown that natural disasters are poverty creators. That is why we need to hasten the establishment of disaster resilience so that this department (will) focus on the natural hazards and climate change,” Duterte said Monday during his fourth State of the Nation Address (Sona).

This was a reiteration from his third Sona last year when he asked Congress to pass the measure that would create the “Department of Disaster Management” to reduce the country’s vulnerabilities to natural disasters and climate change.

He also mentioned the efforts of the government to implement a two-pronged strategy on earthquake resilience in preparation for the “Big One.”

In 2018, Malacañang submitted to Congress the Executive department’s version of the bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience.

Duterte had said earlier he wants to have a point person in the country’s disaster management efforts. /kga