BONTOC, Mountain Province – The Provincial Disaster Risk and Reduction Management Office (PDRRMO) of Mountain Province coordinated and facilitated a three–day Basic Incident Command System (BICS) training course to 43 participants at the Mountain Province multi-purpose building in this capital town.
The attendees were composed of members of the PDRRM Council and other civil society groups in Mountain Province.
This ladderized program has four-level courses to be implemented in four separate broken schedules. These are the basic incident command system (ICS) course, integrated planning on ICS, position courses on ICS and all hazards incident management team.
The first level was composed of ten topics: Introduction to incident command system; organization and staffing; ICS facilities; managing planned events and incidents; incident and event assessment and management by objectives; organizing and managing resources; incident and event planning and transfer of command, demobilization and close out.
The concept of Incident Command System was patterned from the US Forest Service.
Hence, due to the adverse effects of several calamities in the past, the Philippine government enacted RA 10121 or Philippine DRRM act of 2010. It is a proactive approach in managing disaster consequences to reduce risks to people and environment.
The foremost concerns of ICS are to guarantee safety of responders, implement and achieve the set tactical objectives and ensure efficient use of resources.
Harvey Lee, Excel Botigan and Vanessa Sito were the resource persons who came from the Office of Civil Defense-Cordillera Administrative Region, while Jonas Chumacog and Crismas Farnican are staff of PDRRMO, Mountain Province.
Atty. Edward Chumawar, head of MP DRRMO, encouraged the participants to attend the remaining 3 levels of the training to complete the course.
In the post evaluation, the participants revealed that they didn’t only learn knowledge and attitude on ICS, but they were also trained on some skills in managing an event and incident.
By Francis B. Degay