Daily Tribune
PALO, Leyte — Disaster and emergency responders from the different provincial, city and municipal disaster risk reduction and management offices in Eastern Visayas renewed their call to institutionalize DRRM offices in different local government units and regularize frontline disaster responders.
They stressed that the administration under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. offers a good opportunity to realize their demands as the President repeatedly emphasized the importance of DRR under his administration.
Over 200 local DRRM officers from the different parts of the region and other line agencies gathered for a Resiliency Forum organized by the Office of the Civil Defense in Eastern Visayas to discuss, among others, the various concerns of the local DRRM offices last 8 November.
Assistant Secretary Hernando Caraig, Civil Defense deputy administrator for Administration and Operations of the NDRRMC, attended the forum to listen to the different concerns of the disaster responders on the ground.
"We are pushing for comprehensive disaster risk governance where disaster preparedness is at the core of local government units' work," said Josiah Rei Echano, PDRRMO of Northern Samar, adding that every LGU should have a department that is solely focused in risk reduction and resilience building at the community level.
Echano added that at present, almost all LGUs have only one full time worker — the DRRM Officer — while all the rest are job order and contractual workers whose service are at the discretion of the local chief executive.
He said measly funds for DRR get wasted in training DRRM staff only to be replaced whenever there is a change in administration of a locality.
Echano added that disaster responders are also asking for an upgrade on welfare and benefits comparable to that of other government workers in hazardous workplaces due to the risks involved in their line duty.
He said the death of five disaster responders in Bulacan during super typhoon "Karding" is an eye opener for the government on the risks that responders have to go through during emergencies.
Meantime, OCD regional director Lord Byron Torrecareon said his agency supports the call of the local DRRM offices for more benefits to the responders and called on lawmakers to craft a measure that will back it up.
"Without a law it will always be subject to the availability of funds. There are many variables. What we need is to fortify this. I think the administration right now is very supportive of this move," Torrecareon said.
