Majority favors creation of Department of Disaster Resilience: poll

By Prince Golez

Majority or 77 percent of Filipinos are in favor of a proposal to create a Department of Disaster Resilience (DDR), a recent survey by WR Numero Research showed.

Last September, the House of Representatives approved on third and final reading House Bill No. (HBN) 5989 or the Disaster Resilience Act, authorizing the department to be the primary government agency responsible for “leading, organizing, and managing national effort to reduce disaster risk, prepare for and respond to disasters, recover and rehabilitate, and build forward better after the occurrence of disasters.”

The bill is currently pending in the Senate.

The mobile app-based survey conducted between November 23 and 28 also said that 19 percent are “unsure” while four percent either disagree or strongly disagree.

“The proposal to create the Department of Disaster Resilience might be an important governance innovation for a country extremely prone to natural disasters,” WR Numero CEO Robin Michael Garcia said in a statement.

On whether the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council is already enough to handle disasters and calamities, 54 percent of the respondents answered in the affirmative.

Twenty percent of them said they are unsure, while 26 percent either disagree or strongly disagree, the poll also noted.

President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly called on Congress for the creation of a department for disaster resilience. The new department, he said, will focus on natural hazards and climate change.

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