The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) recently shared its Disaster Response Management initiatives with officials from the Provincial Government of Davao del Norte who recently visited the Department’s Disaster Response Management Bureau (DReMB).

“We welcome the members of the Provincial Quick Response Team of Davao del Norte to our DReMB Operations Center for a learning session regarding disaster management. Our DReMB team introduced the delegates to the different initiatives of DSWD’s Disaster Response Operations Monitoring and Information Center (DROMIC),” DSWD Officer-in-Charge (OIC) Emmanuel A. Leyco said.

The guests were presented with a general picture of Republic Act (RA) 10121 or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Act of 2010 and the roles of DSWD as the Vice-Chair for the Disaster Response Pillar. The Department is the lead for the Camp Coordination and Camp Management (CCCM) Cluster, Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) Protection Cluster, and Food and Non-food Items (FNI) Cluster.

The DROMIC reporting process was also discussed with the guests and how it is currently in the process of being enhanced through the Disaster Response Operations Monitoring Information System (DROMIS) and Family Access Card during Emergencies (FACE).

The guests were also introduced to the Predictive Analytics for Humanitarian Response (PAHR) and how it is utilized as the main tool the DSWD uses to plan the appropriate response to approaching hazards. They were shown examples of previous PAHRs such as for the Super Typhoon “Lawin” and “The Big One” or the 7.2-Magnitude Earthquake that could potentially hit Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

The activity ended with the Provincial Government of Davao del Norte expressing its intent to secure and utilize the technologies that the DReMB has, in order to better equip their operations center with a more sophisticated system of capturing and reporting data.

“The Philippines is a disaster prone country, and in recent years, our country experienced strong disasters which were also the effect of the global warming phenomenon. Thus, the exchange of learning such as this activity on how to handle disaster management from mitigation to rehabilitation is important,” said OIC Leyco.

He also reiterated that the Department’s DReMB Operations Center is open to all LGUs and other stakeholders who would like to replicate the initiatives and strategies being employed by DSWD. (SMS)