To further raise the city’s standards for disaster preparedness and climate change adaptation, village chiefs together with their council members convened in a four-day seminar on June 25-28, 2012 at the Maharajah Hotel, Angeles City to analyze hazards, prepare plans, identify needs and have an overall awareness for calamities.
The seminar-workshop, dubbed “Enhancing the Local Government Unit on Disaster Risk Reduction & Management and Climate Change Adaptation”, was spearheaded by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) with the support of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD).
According to Myrvi Apostol-Fabia, DILG Director of Angeles City, the main concern of the workshop is to capacitate the barangays and its officials on how they are going to respond to certain disasters and calamities.
“Let us remember Cagayan de Oro and how it was devastated from typhoon Sendong – we should not wait for such to happen in Angeles City,” Apostol-Fabia said.
Apostol-Fabia explained that all these measures are requirements which are to be used in the city’s attempt to be awarded of the DILG’s ‘Seal of Disaster Preparedness.’
“The seminar also checks to see if the city is ready to face calamities, mitigate disasters and prevent them in the near future. Several aspects like availability of equipment, contingency planning, emergency response, search and rescue and the formulation of a disaster and risk reduction management plan is all covered,” she added.
According to Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, the city has to further strengthen its efforts to combat disasters that may occur in the future.
“The cooperation of all our barangay officials is an imperative to make the city and its citizens safe from any untoward incidents during the occurrence of heavy rains and strong typhoons,” Pamintuan said.
The mayor also appealed for the cooperation of the citizens of Angeles to be aware of how they can ask for aid when calamities would strike.
“The responsibility does not lie solely on our barangay captains and councilmen, but to all Angeleños to stay vigilant and cooperative in times of disaster,” he added.
The mayor recalls how Angeleños were able to turn tragedy into triumph in the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption where his administration back then rallied the people to one united cause.
He hopes that this could be emulated today for climate change adaptation and the preparation for disasters and calamities that may come.
