DRMM teams take center stage

THOUSANDS of lives are disrupted every time a typhoon hits the province and as in most cases, patterns and sequences have already been established over the years.

It is, therefore, heartening to see our local government units  more prepared to handle evacuation, relief and rescue operations, and tending to medical and basic needs of evacuees as evidenced by the more orderly and calibrated actions they employed at the height of Typhoon Juan.

It is to the credit of the leadership of both the provincial and municipal/city governments that their Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Teams finally started to work like clockwork from preparations to rescue and relief operations over the last 5 days.

Finally, we are seeing the end of our fatalistic and “que sera sera” view of disasters and calamities. While it is true that damages to lives and properties are inevitable when super typhoons and storms hit, preparedness of communities effectively minimizes the risks, damages and losses. We only hope, therefore, that our local government leaders’ seeming successful efforts this time around will not lead them to complacency believing they now have a template to bank on to serve future similar emergencies. Backsliding to complacency will bring to naught all the resource building they have been doing over the past years and will instantly bring them back to square one.

The reason many organizations earn reputations to be good at what they do it is because training is all they do.  Nothing is left to chance, not a volunteers’ aptitude, a staffer’s capability and the search for improved technology and equipment. And since the number of typhoons visiting the country now averages 25-30 a year, the likelihood of applying the training every year is very certain – the training to save lives and minimize losses.

A crack disaster risk reduction management team will always take center stage in a community where millions worth of properties and precious lives are at stake.

For this reason that our elected officials should see to the logistical support needed to support the training that would keep our DRMM teams in peak form 24/7.

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