May sapat na pondo ba? Ping asks hard questions on proposed Department of Disaster Resilience

Will it be feasible? And will there be proper funding for it?

These were the tough questions that Sen. Panfilo Lacson raised on Monday, amid calls for the creation of a new Department of Disaster Resilience.

“It is relatively easy to pass a law creating new departments. But would it be feasible, and will there be proper funding for it? The Department of Budget and Management says at least P1.5 billion is needed to set up the department. That does not yet include added salaries, capital outlay like office facilities, furniture, vehicles, MOOE, and CIF,” Lacson said in a statement.

He noted that during the first public hearing that discussed the matter last January, the stakeholders who served as resource persons also cited at least three concerns about creating a new department for disaster and risk reduction.

First of these is that a policy direction for right-sizing the bureaucracy that is already bloated.

Second, Lacson said the implementation especially of recovery and rehabilitation will be carried out not by the proposed new department but by existing agencies such as the Department of Public Works and Highways, Department of Social Welfare and Development, and Department of Health.

The third is that other newly created departments like the Department of Information and Communications Technology and the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development “cannot be properly funded, or at least are not given the appropriate funding to work properly.”

In the case of the DICT, he said it had sought an additional budget for two budget years in a row, to establish and develop the country’s national broadband program and free Wi-Fi services for all government agencies.

Yet, he lamented the DBM has provided “just a paltry sum” – in the case of the national broadband program, providing only P900 million out of the agency’s request for P18 billion.

With this in mind, Lacson proposed instead a dedicated office under the Office of the President with Cabinet rank and full authority to mobilize concerned government agencies “during and after calamities both natural and man-made – from policy-making and planning all the way to implementation.”

“(This) would do the job with much less funding and minimum number of staff and personnel,” he said.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)