BAGUIO CITY – The city government will pursue the construction of a multi-storey city disaster risk reduction and management building that will also serve as the city’s premier evacuation center for natural and man-made calamity victims.
City Administrator Carlos M. Canilao said the tedious bidding process for the said project was already completed and that the scheduled construction of the said structure at the compound of the city engineer’s office will be on June 30, 2016.
The funds for the project was included in the P1.622 billion annual budget of the city government which was already passed upon and declared operative by the regional office of the Department of budget and Management (DBM) after the appropriation ordinance was found to have complied with existing budgeting rules and regulations.
“The multi-storey disaster risk reduction center will be a one-stop shop that will accommodate the disaster operation center, a multi-purpose training facility for disaster preparedness, evacuation center that will be complete with amenities and a motor pool for the city’s disaster risk reduction and management equipment among others,” Canilao stressed.
The city administrator cited once completed, public schools will no longer be used as evacuation centers during the onslaught of natural calamities because the classrooms were not designed for evacuation purposes, thus, the need for the immediate completion of the disaster risk reduction and management structure.
According to put, the put up of the city-owned disaster risk reduction and management center and evacuation facility will help improve the city’s competitiveness in the national level considering that the existence of a separate evacuation center and facility is one of the major criteria in the judging of the compliance of local governments to disaster risk reduction and mitigating programs.
Canilao expressed optimism on the immediate completion of the new disaster risk reduction and evacuation center so that it could already be utilized during the onslaught of natural and man-made calamities in the city, especially that the rainy and typhoon season is just around the corner.
It can be recalled that the construction of the disaster risk reduction and evacuation center was included in the city’s 2016 Annual Investment Plan purposely to comply with the recommendations of regional and national disaster risk reduction assessors on the need for the local government to abandon using classrooms in public schools as temporary shelters of calamity victims during the onslaught of natural and man-made disasters that hit the city.
Canilao added that barangay and community-based disaster risk reduction and management trainings will also be held in the facility that will be adequately equipped to guarantee swift disaster response during emergency and calamity situations where there will be numerous calls for assistance from the concerned government agencies and the city government.
By Dexter A. See
