Alert up for Bukidnon local disaster risk reduction, management

MALAYBALAY CITY – It’s already approaching the middle of the year, but Bukidnon’s Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Plan for 2011 is yet to be approved.

The Bukidnon provincial board has asked the Provincial Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (LDRRMO) to prepare and submit to the provincial board the province’s annual Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Plan for 2011.

In a unanimously approved resolution sponsored by board member Jay Albarece, the provincial board cited Section 12 (7) of Republic Act No. 10121 or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010.

They said the act mandated, among others, for the Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (LDRRMO) to prepare and submit to the local sanggunian through the Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (LDRRMC) and the local development council (LDC) the annual Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Office (LDRRMO) Plan and budget.

Albarece said the law also required submission of the proposed programming of the Local Disaster Risk Reduction Management Fund (LDRRMF) of the province. The law, he cited, also required submission of programming for the other dedicated disaster risk reduction and management resources, and other regular funding sources and budgetary support of the LDRRMO and the Barangay Disaster Risk Reduction Management Committee (BDRRMC).

But the provincial board wanted the risk reduction and management office to include “a specialized plan to address the possible recurrence of dengue outbreak in the province.”

The provincial board was about to declare a state of calamity in 2009 to “implement mitigating and response measures” against the dengue outbreak in the province then.

But “inconsistencies in data as to the true extent of the outbreak,” Albarece cited, came in the way.

“It was reported that there were as many as 1,670 dengue cases resulting in 19 deaths in the province from January to Sept. 21 in 2010 due to the outbreak of dengue, which figures are way above the 299 cases and three deaths in 2009 and 108 cases and zero death in 2008.

He also blamed the problem to lack of a “disaster preparedness plan” specifically dealing with dengue. (Walter I. Balane)