QUEZON City, Philippines (Eagle News) — Senator Grace Poe has proposed the creation of a permanent disaster mitigation agency in the face of successive earthquakes that struck the country, the latest of which is the magnitude-6.5 earthquake that hit Leyte.
“Climate change is a reality and is upon us,” she said in a statement.
She said the agency could replace the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, which she said could be considered an ad-hoc agency only.
She said the permanent and “independent” agency could directly handle such disasters, including those brought about by extreme weather conditions.
“The independence of the proposed agency is a necessity to enable us to resolve problems that have accumulated throughout the country’s recent catastrophes, most notably the new normal brought about by Typhoon Yolanda, which all point to the need for a strong and independent regulator and monitoring body that will ensure the accountability of duty-bearers in the performance of disaster risk reduction and management duties,” Poe added.
“Given the frequency of these extreme weather situations the Philippines has experienced, for us to just sit here and think that this is not going to happen again would be shortsightedness,” she said.
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