MANILA, Philippines – Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez pushed yesterday the creation of a national emergency management agency, which he compared to an upgrade of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council.
He said it could be patterned after the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and must be able to operate on a regular basis, unlike its current ad hoc or “as the need arises” set-up.
“A department similar to FEMA could be entrusted with the authority to provide calamity victims the needed loans that cut the red tape. We’ve complained about how inefficiently the Department of Social Welfare and Development manages delivery of disaster assistance,” Romualdez added.
The appointment of a “rehabilitation czar” in the aftermath of Super Typhoon Yolanda, he also said, actually exposed the limitations of a provisional government response to disaster management.
Yolanda claimed the lives of an estimated 6,300 people – many of them in Romualdez’s province – and left about half a million homeless.