Legarda bats for enforcement of laws on climate change, disaster preparedness

Senator Loren Legarda. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The deluge of donations is good, but disaster preparedness is better.

With the country expected to suffer more calamities in the coming years, Senator Loren Legarda on Saturday  appealed to the national government to put priority on “disaster preparedness and mitigation,” mainly by implementing two key pieces of legislation.

Legarda, chairperson of the committee on climate change, was referring to the Climate Change Act and the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act, both of which outline specific responses to address the impact of calamities.

“We can no longer stall the prioritization of DRR and climate change adaptation in the national and local level. We need this to achieve significant gains in reducing our vulnerability to hazards,” she said in a statement.

“It is the mandate of the government to protect the country and its citizens, and as elected leaders of this nation, we have to ensure that our people feel secure when they sleep at night; they need to feel safe when they go to work; or even in just simply living their lives amid threats of disasters.”

Legarda noted that disasters in 2011 claimed more lives and damaged more properties because “necessary preparedness and mitigation efforts were not in place.”

“We must not forget the lessons brought by the disasters that hit our country even after we are done coping with the effects, so that when the next hazard strikes, we will be better prepared to meet the challenges head on,” she said.

Legarda said local governments should come up with updated data on “flood hazards and vulnerabilities, develop their information base on flood losses, invest in flood protection and mitigation, identify safe land for low-income families, and implement the solid waste management law at full speed.”

Structures such as schools and hospitals should also be subjected to evaluation and retrofitted in preparation for earthquakes, the senator added.