Disaster and Risk Reduction Management

According to Republic Act No. 10121, known as the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Act of 2010, is an act mandated to strengthen disaster management in the Philippines, a country prone to natural hazards. It aims to develop a framework and roll out resources that will enable the national government, the local government units, and other stakeholders to build communities that can survive disasters.

It is not new to everyone that the Philippines is inside the typhoon belt and the so called Ring of Fire that makes our country very prone to disaster such as floods, super typhoon, fire and even earthquakes. A strong typhoon to visit our country like the Bagyong Ondoy that happened on 27th of September 2009,  is just normal, but the damages that it brings, the family that it affects, the people that it kills, is extremely large. According to the damage report that the Bagyong Ondoy brought, it caused damages to infrastructure and agriculture at a cost of P11 billion ($246 million*), 993,227 families or 4,901,234 people were affected, 464 were killed, 529 injured, and 37 were missing. 

To lessen those large numbers, we need to study on how we can avoid or at least minimize the casualties and always be prepared for disasters.

Two months ago, in our DRRM Seminar, we were taught about the effects, the possibilities, the risk of the disaster and how we must respond to these disasters.

For our first activity, we were asked to write down on the manila paper the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of our respective barangay and the things that our barangay can do to respond to these vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

Based on our activity, as a group and even from the other group, we found that many barangay is vulnerable to floods, fire and traffic. Well, I think thats normal considering that our places is congested with people, cars and the houses are close to each other and mostly are made up of woods.

For the second activity, we played a game, and if i remember correctly, it is entitled "bahay-tao-bagyo", it is very similar to "Open The Basket".

And for our last activity, we were taught how we can save ones life by giving us the basic knowledge and the steps we can do in helping somebody who lost consciousness or fainted.

Some of my group mates

I learned how to do stuffs like CPR or Cardiopulmonary resuscitation and how we must carry ones body when it is experiencing some sort of pain, thanks to this seminar. It is very helpful and fun at the same time.

Barangay Sanbartolome DRRM

After everything I learned from the seminar, I went to our barangay to interview one of the barangay official, luckily, I was able to interview our kagawad whos name is Angelito E. Valderama (Lito), he is well respected and the one assigned in DRRM program in our barangay.

Kagawad Lito and Me

I ask him few questions about the vulnerabilities and weaknesses of our barangay and according to him, number one weakness/disaster that our barangay is facing, is related to fire. I believe that too since there are many informal settlers in our place, their houses are not built to withstand the fire. And the second one is Flood, for the follow up question, I ask him if you could name some places that is prone to floods, he blurted out the name of some places and gave me a documents wherein you can see the list of the places. Based on the document "The Communities of Odelco Riverside, Dona Tomasa Riverside and California Riverside, are the most affected areas, since most of the ISF’s or Informal Settler Families reside here.". I was shocked because my place were in the list, I lived in Dona Tomasa.

Picture of Tullahan River (prone to flood)

For the next question, I ask him what the barangay did in the past to address these weaknesses. He turn the pages of the documents and he let me see what is inside that and told me about the construction of the wall and the relocation that they did for the ISF. "After the relocation The National Government constructed retaining wall along Tullahan River to ensure that no house will be built again along the High Risk Area. 98 ISFamily relocate at Padre Pio De Cacarong Bata Pandi Bulacan.".

Picture of the relief goods that the barangay sendfor flood victims

Community Walk

One of the most hazardous place in our barangay is our place because it is near the river. We experienced the flood that is brought by the Super Typhoon Ondoy. Most of ISF in our place that is residing near the river is not putting their trash to the right places. They just throw it in the river. 

Our place after the being hit by the bagyong Ondoy

 

What I like on our barangay is that the officials are doing their best to help us whenever we need it. They have so many programs that really help us like the "libreng bakuna kontra sa dengue" at "libreng salamin para sa malalabo ang mata". Also, they act fast and there is always a multicab patrolling in our place that really help because it lessen the crime rate in our place.

As the member of the barangay, I live as an example to my friends by following the rules and regulations of our barangay and I also encourage them to do the same. Even simple things like putting the trash found outside in a right bin is a big help to the community.