US-Australia offer technical and financial assistance to Phl disaster preparedness

SENATE OFFICE, Manila, April 27, 2011-Senator Edgardo J. Angara, Chair of the Congressional Commission of Science, Technology and Engineering (COMSTE) yesterday said that the government should take advantage of the technical and financial assistance to develop disaster science and preparedness that the United States and Australian governments are offering.

He said that COMSTE will participate in the event sponsored by the U.S. Pacific Command, the U.S. Embassy, the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific, the Experimentation Center, and the Office of Naval Research Global, adding that 2011 Forum on Post-Disaster Water and Waste Management will bring together the research and development (R&D) and operational communities from the Philippines and the United States in an interactive environment where current technologies and operational needs can be discussed.

“It will focus on water purification, water distribution and waste management (W3M) which are critical concerns during post-disaster Humanitarian Assistance/Disaster Relief (HA/DR) operations,” Angara said, adding that the W3M aspires to provide a forum where stakeholders from the HA/DR operational community can convey their requirements to researchers, and for those researchers to describe their current research projects to the operational stakeholders.

“The interaction is designed to foster the development of more effective HA/DR W3M technologies which may someday support the fielding of portable/mobile systems designed to alleviate the effect of future disasters on civilian populations,” Angara said, noting that the event will help one of the main priorities of COMSTE, which is the expansion of the Philippine Disaster Science Management Center (DSMC).

He said that the Australian government has also committed P 720 million to help the country implement a disaster risk management plan on the local level, saying that the announcement was made by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), which has also launched a book entitled, “Rising to the Call”, which documents ideal practices in disaster-risk reduction and climate change adaptation on the 21 provinces of the Philippines.

“The DSMC is needed to help us to prepare for the earthquakes and similar disasters that will continue to threaten the country, noting that the government needs to be able to understand how to develop an advanced and real-time information dissemination strategy so people can better prepare to handle such events.

DSMC will also house a training center that will focus on scenario-type learning utilizing technology for disaster mitigation and management. He said that Taiwan and Japan are already actively cooperating with training of local experts for situations like floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. It will also help the scientific community to better understand the mechanics of managing disasters with the cooperation of neighboring countries that have experienced similar storms and natural calamities like the country. (Jason de Asis)