There is a need for the Philippines government to institutionalize its search and rescue forces to mitigate the damages brought about by natural calamities, Senator Chiz Escudero suggested.
Senate Escudero filed Resolution Number 575 (PSN 575) as chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. He asked fellow senators to look into the government’s search and rescue capability and to clearly define the policy to enhance and strengthen disaster preparedness effort of the state. It also seeks to provide a magna carta for rescue workers and improve the provisions of Republic Act No. 10121.
"We urgently need to systematically develop our human, technical and equipment capacity and resources to adequately respond to natural and man-made disasters. Recent disasters like typhoons Pepeng and Ondoy left thousands dead and homeless and showed the vulnerabilities and limited capacities of our rescue units and workers," Escudero explained.
The senator said the lack of defined policies and valuable resources stretched the capacity of the government to the limit to respond to such life-threatening calamities.
"We need a working and institutionalized mechanism that will enhance the rescue capability and performance of our rescue workers. We should be able to develop a rescue force we can mobilize anytime without the fear of exceeding their own rescue capabilities," Escudero added.
After the earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, the Philippines offered to send assistance to those countries by sending urban and search rescue team. However, it was not admitted and deployed since it was not accredited by the United Nations International Search and Rescue Advisory Group.
"As a country, which is unfortunately frequented by natural calamities many times over in a year, we should already build, establish and continuously strengthen the capacity of our rescue forces so we can easily mobilize forces to avoid loss of lives and properties," Escudero said. /MP
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