Legarda: DRR Should Be Local, Everybody’s Business

MANILA-Participating at the IPU Parliamentary Meeting on Governance and Legislation for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), Senator Loren Legarda today stressed the need to bring DRR down to the local level.

Legarda, UNISDR Champion for Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, said that, “as all politics is local, all DRR should be local. We have the building blocks in the model laws that we have enacted. But our laws are nothing but ink on paper if not brought down to the level of the community and if not properly implemented.”

“In response to the priority actions under the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA), the Philippines enacted the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Law and the Climate Change Law. But ten years after the HFA was adopted, we realize the gaps in implementing our laws. We have yet to make our people fully understand the law; we have yet to effectively manage the risks; we have yet to fully achieve a change in mindset from decades of response orientation to preparedness and risk reduction,” she stressed.

“The paradigm shift must be here and now, and DRR should be everybody’s business—government, private sector, civil society groups, media, local communities and vulnerable sectors,” she added.

The Senator also highlighted the importance of strengthening the link between DRR and climate change adaptation (CCA).

In 2009, Legarda facilitated a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) and Climate Change Commission (CCC) to strengthen the collaboration of the two agencies towards building resilience and reducing disaster and climate risks.

“This year, 2015, is a critical year for human survival as we adopt a new framework for DRR here in Sendai, agree on sustainable development goals in New York, and commit to a legally binding and ambitious global climate agreement in Paris. We must all act now not just with a sense of urgency, rather with a sense of great emergency. The Philippines has all to gain and nothing to lose in DRR,” Legarda concluded.

Legarda is scheduled to speak today in the afternoon session of the IPU Parliamentary Meeting on Improving Legislation for DRR. The forum was organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) on the occasion of the 3rd UN World Conference on DRR.