Governor brings disaster awareness to villages

TAGUM CITY—Davao del Norte will bring disaster awareness to grassroots communities under a program aimed at ensuring people’s participation to ease the impact of natural disasters, according to its governor, Gov. Rodolfo del Rosario.

“We will put climate change on center stage so people would understand how it relates to disasters, and how we can adapt to it,” Del Rosario said during the Tagum Biz Talk media forum at Big 8 Corporate Hotel here.

To be launched next month, the program, dubbed Oplan

Andam (Advocacy on Natural Disaster Awareness and Mitigation) will tap all provincial government agencies to help in educating the people on how to be ready always for natural disasters. Andam is a Cebuano word for “prepare.”

The three-year program will highlight the effects of climate change to worsening natural disasters that have hit the country, in the wake of the devastation wrought by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in the Visayas, and how communities could help minimize the impact of calamities.

“With Oplan Andam in full swing by 2014, we would go down to every household in the province to tell people what to do before, during and after a disaster strikes,” Del Rosario said.

Part of the program is to educate people to “really heed government warnings and force them to evacuate when an emergency arises,” he added.

Romulo Tagalo, provincial information officer, said Oplan Andam would replace the capitol’s Convergence Caravan, a multiagency medical and social services outreach program that makes rounds to far-flung and insurgency-affected villages in the province “to bring basic public services closer to the people.”

Del Rosario said the army and police, two security apparatuses that are in the forefront of Convergence Caravan, would also play vital roles in Oplan Andam.

“The AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and the PNP (Philippine National Police) together with the provincial disaster risk reduction management council (PDRRMC) would be put together to conduct life-saving trainings in communities,” Del Rosario said.

The governor said the storms that have hit Mindanao in recent years, show a new risk for the region.

He cited the cases of Tropical Storm “Sendong” in 2011 which ravaged northern Mindanao in 2011, Supertyphoon “Pablo” which devastated southern Mindanao in December last year, and just early this month, Tropical Depression “Zoraida,” which killed two people and damaged up to

P5 million in crops and property in Davao del Norte.

“What can really stall the development of Davao del Norte (and other areas) is when hit by a storm (as powerful as ‘Yolanda’),” Del Rosario said.

He said local governments from the provincial capitol down to the villages should look for ways to adapt to the erratic weather patterns.

“Like in planting rice, we have to look for a variety that can stay withstand even being submerged in flood waters for 48 hours. We also have to figure out how to improve our roads, how to build them so they would not be damaged easily by floods. These are just some ways for us to adapt our activities to climate change,” Del Rosario said.

The provincial government has the capability and resources to prepare and protect the people from disasters, he said. It has earmarked P60 million or 5 percent of the 2014 budget of P1.2 billion for its calamity fund, and over 30 percent of it or some P21 million would be for disaster preparation and mitigation.

“We just have to educate people the importance of heeding precaution and warnings before a disaster hits. Rescue operations only come in when people do not follow instructions and warnings,” Del Rosario said. Frinston L. Lim, Inquirer Mindanao