Say No To “Disasters”, Say Yes To “Prepareness”

Joel G. Dizon
Education Program Specialist II

What we need today is a responsive community that is ready to take the risk and that is able to survive in the challenges of time. One of the biggest challenges in today’s world is the environmental changes brought by the climate change that results to natural disasters that even lead to devastating environment.

The government empowers all its agencies to be knowledgeable and equipped when the disaster strikes. Pushing its limit is the creation of Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council under the Department of Interior and Local Government which is responsible to keep on tracking all the risks that will affect the lives of the people in times of disasters. This office further looks for its possible coordination with other departments and interventions to assure that every Filipino is ready and responsible of his own life when calamities beset us.

As a results, its advocacy to disseminate information about DRRM is greatly handed down to the Department of Education. It is strongly believed that education through schools can make a big help of educating the families on how to manage and handle these natural calamities. To name few are the quarterly earthquake and fire drills conducted every year. Other than these are the localized disaster preparedness initiated by the local government in partnership with DepEd. These depend on the environmental risks people face in each local community.

The said advocacy shall not remain as advocacy but this needs a thorough awareness and practices for preparedness, management, and survival when calamity comes. Still, there are some who do not take this seriously until they experience it and become victims. It is sad but true that people will only learn aftermath. They should not wait for these confronting situation to happen.

The government is doing well for this challenge and people shall take responsibility on saving their lives and beat their changing environment. It is high time to be aware and prepared with these natural phenomena. Everyone is accountable for everyone deserves life.

To be ready is to be safe. To be safe is to live long.