MikeLigalig.com

THE HONORABLE FREDERICK W. SIAO
Lone District of Iligan City
Vice Chair, Committee on Tourism
Member, Appropriations, Economic Affairs, and 8 other committees

ILIGAN CITY SOLON ASKS NEDA, DBM TO GET PRESIDENT DUTERTE TO CERTIFY AS URGENT PENDING DRRM BILLS

The 2019 budget cycle will start very soon, most likely in January or early February, with the issuance of the budget call from DBM Secretary Benjamin Diokno. Anticipating that, I now ask Secretary Diokno to include more funding in the 2019 budget for disaster risk reduction and management, particularly for 4th, 5th, and 6th class municipalities—the most vulnerable and weakest in terms of DRRM.

Storms like Urduja and Vinta now and Pablo before are stark reminders that the poor towns and the coastal and river basin LGUs are at high risk.

A DRRM capacity building program for these high risks LGUs and developed by both the DBM and NDRRMC would be the appropriate solution and prevention.

I am co-author of HB 1648, which seeks to create a NDRRM Authority and is one of ten bills pending in the House.

Only last November 17, NEDA chief Ernesto Pernia asked Congress “to conclude the review of the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management or DRRM Act of 2010 to make our institutions more effective in ensuring that communities in the country are more resilient to natural and man-made shocks.” https://goo.gl/9n3XKz

I ask Secretaries Pernia and Diokno to convince President Duterte to certify the DRRM bills as urgent, so that both chambers of Congress will expedite those bills and get them passed before the end of the current second regular session in May 2018.

For my part, I, as the Representative of the Lone Congressional District of Iligan City, my concern is that the DRRM programs of Iligan dovetail with those of nearby Cagayan de Oro City and Marawi City because disasters that strike any one of the cities affect the others.

It is for this reason that I will reach out to my colleagues and neighbors in CDO and Marawi to work out a framework and a bill for a metropolitan or inter-city approach to DRRM.

I will also support and convince other congressman to support the additional DRRM funding for the poorest municipalities which the DBM will propose and to get the DRRM Law amendments passed. (END)

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