CEBU CITY -- Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia and Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama vowed to support the campaign to reduce disaster risk in the region during its launching at Capitol on Thursday.
The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) also honored San Francisco Vice Mayor Alfredo Arquillano Jr. for his advocacy on disaster preparedness.
He was named Campaign Champion in the Asia Pacific region.
In a press conference, Garcia also announced that over 17,000 new tanods in the province, who will undergo training for six to eight months, will be equipped to respond to calamities.
Apart from Garcia and Rama, mayors and vice mayors of different towns in the province signed up for the campaign, which is led by the UNISDR.
Senator Loren Legarda, who attended the launching, said the region is prone to landslides and flooding, and Cebu is vulnerable to temperature changes and droughts.
“Urban governance is very important,” she said.
The country must adopt pre-emptive risk reduction measures because response mechanisms are never enough, said Michael Diamond, country director of the Plan International, a humanitarian group that works in 66 countries.
He noted that the Philippines lags behind Japan in disaster risk reduction, although the latter has more people exposed to natural hazards.
“Should a cyclone of the same magnitude strike both countries, the death toll in the Philippines would be 17 times higher than in Japan,” he said.
By joining the campaign, local officials should implement the 10 essentials for making cities resilient.
These essentials include building local alliances, funding disaster risk reduction programs, maintaining data on hazards and vulnerabilities, investing in infrastructure that reduce risk and installing early warning systems.
“Cebu City is one with all when it comes to disaster risk reduction,” Rama said.
Jerry Velasquez, a representative from the UNISDR, said Cebu Province has made a record for having the most number of mayors to sign up for the campaign in one event.
In an increasingly urbanized world, the poor are the most vulnerable sector in the face of disasters, he said, adding that “reducing disaster risk is everyone’s business.”
Arquillano vowed to continue his advocacy for disaster preparedness and urged towns and cities to become resilient to disasters.
“We must act now, boldly and urgently,” he said.
Dumanjug Mayor Nelson Garcia, the president of the League of Municipalities in the Philippines Cebu chapter, said towns and cities, instead of finger-pointing, must start implementing preventive measures against calamities.
“We can save lives and billions of properties if we’re prepared,” he said.
The launching was also attended by government agencies and civil society groups.
Legarda said disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation must be included in national and local development planning.
She also urged government agencies to build infrastructure that are safe amid natural hazards.
Disaster risk in urban areas, according to the UNISDR, is driven by rising populations, weak urban governance and unplanned urban development.
Meanwhile, the Office of Civil Defense Executive Officer Ronald Flores on Thursday reminded the local chief executives that calamity funds can only be used for risk reduction projects.
Using the funds other than for its specified purpose will put them at risk of being criminally and administratively charged for violating Republic Act 10121.
Interviewed during the launching of the Disaster Risk Reduction Campaign, Flores said that previous local officials would declare unused calamity funds as savings and would convert these into general funds.
They would allocate the funds for bonus and other benefits of the LGU.
“Under the law, that practice is illegal. Unused calamity funds must be placed under the special trust fund and shall stay at the municipal, city or provincial coffer for five years. This trust fund can only be used for projects that can reduce vulnerability of the people in the community to disasters and calamities,” Flores said. (RSB/EOB/Sun.Star Cebu)
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on January 14, 2011.
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