MANILA, Philippines — The House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations on Wednesday approved the bill creating the proposed Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR).
The approval was made ahead of the House session in Batangas City where the bill creating the department is expected to be passed on second reading.
Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, said Taal Volcano’s eruption “requires us to act on this measure now.”
Under the House’s version of the bill, DRR will be the primary agency “responsible, accountable, and liable for leading, managing, and organizing national efforts to prevent and reduce disaster risks; prepare for and respond to disasters; and recover, rehabilitate and build forward better after the destruction.”
The bill also provides that DDR will still have the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) as its core organization to which the Climate Change Commission Office, the Health Emergency Management Bureau of the Department of Health (DOH), the Disaster Response Assistance and the Disaster Response Management Bureau of the Department of Social Welfare and Development will be integrated.
In his State of the Nation Address in 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte called on the Congress to speed up the creation of the DDR, saying that “natural disasters are poverty creators.”