Rebuilding resilience as political currents swirl
The sun may be shining, but storm clouds loom on the horizon, necessitating that we prepare thoroughly for what lies ahead by taking groundbreaking action commensurate with natural hazards and the gravity of the crisis brought about by climate change.
As discussed in my previous two columns, only a stand-alone Cabinet-level department, endowed with full legal, political, and budgetary authority, can meet the challenges of the climate crisis upon us. The House of Representatives passed such a measure in the 17th and 18th Congresses, but counterpart measures filed in the Senate failed to pass muster.
Most of these House bills have been refiled in the current 20th Congress, and the public—hungry for more permanent solutions to our collective misery during the southwest monsoon season, or habagat—should scrutinize the salient provisions of these proposed measures, spurring Congress to create the Department of Disaster Resilience before the end of this year’s habagat.
Fragmentation of responsibilities. The explanatory note for House Bill No. 5764 noted “serious gaps in coordination, funding, and execution” since Congress passed Republic Act No. 10121, the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010. The bill also cited the “fragmentation of responsibilities” that “weakened accountability and left government units overstretched in times of crisis.”
Noting that the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council’s (NDRRMC) composition slows disaster preparation and response, HB 158, filed by Rep. Rene Ann Lourdes Matibag, envisions a separate department whose “primordial goal” is to ensure the safety of Filipinos. The lawmaker identified three key result areas for the department to focus on—disaster risk reduction (DRR), disaster preparedness and response, and recovery and building forward better.
To address the council’s fragmented authority and dispersed resources, HB 7221, filed by Reps. Martin, Yedda Marie, Andrew Julian Romualdez, and Jude Acidre, would make the new department the “primary disaster management body, centralizing command over DRR, preparedness, response, and recovery.” The department will “ensure clear leadership, streamline coordination across national and local government units, and enable a swift and effective response during emergencies,” the bill said.
HB 373, filed in 2025 by Rep. Richard Gomez, consolidates 36 House bills in the 19th Congress and contemplates a department that is “responsible for protecting our entire nation against disasters,” pivoting beyond evacuation, search and rescue, and disaster aid by arming the department with command-and-control powers to oversee and coordinate the preparation, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of disaster and climate resilience plans. Reps. Martin Romualdez and Gomez currently represent the Leyte districts pummeled by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in 2013.
NDRRMC setup. Currently, DRR planning, rescue operations, and relief efforts during calamities are handled by 14 national government departments and 25 other national officials or offices, all of which are members of the NDRRMC, established by RA 10121. The NDRRMC is managed by the Office of the Civil Defense (OCD) within the Department of National Defense.
But the increasing intensity and frequency of natural hazards often result in disasters because these hazards exceed the natural ability of affected communities to cope with them using their own resources to reduce, if not eliminate, their vulnerabilities.
What was the government’s response in 2010? Stuff the NDRRMC with nearly all frontline agencies and related offices, while making the OCD its coordinating body. Since NDRRMC members also perform other functions, they end up multitasking, with resources often stretched thin.
Surely, the 2010 law’s intent is to pursue a whole-of-government approach to combating climate change following the onslaught of Tropical Storm “Ondoy” in 2009; but the serious flaw lies in the structure of the primary government body responsible for preparedness and response, as embodied in the DRR and climate change adaptation strategies needed to reduce vulnerabilities and risks.
Because the DRR budget is not housed in a single department and there is no permanent, cohesive framework to carry out the work, let alone dedicated officials and staff focused solely on reducing the country’s natural vulnerabilities, it has been difficult to implement programs to make the country climate- or quake-resistant.
These policy and structural flaws have become unintended barriers to pursuing long-term plans that entail strategic scientific studies and require substantial funding to implement multiyear projects in hazard-prone areas, such as relocating entire communities, constructing quake- and flood-resistant infrastructure, and rehabilitating aging urban drainage systems, which, as common sense dictates, must be interconnected.
Having an interagency body operate on an ad hoc basis often leads to reactive, shortsighted decisions that are vulnerable to shifting political currents.
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