The Naga City Integrated Emergency Management System

By ERNESTO T. ELCAMEL

Making Naga City safer before disaster strikes DISASTER management has evolved somewhat over the past decades with a shift from response to prevention and preparedness to mitigation. The United Nations International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction , and the Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (AUDMP-ADPC) saw many governments and institutions , including Naga City, adopt the four specific disaster management concepts , namely :

• The all hazards approach

• The Comprehensive approach (incorporating prevention, preparedness, mitigation response and recovery )

• The all agencies approach ( incident command system)

• The prepared community ( building resilient communities by adopting the Hyogo Framework of Action )

Natural hazards, such as typhoons, flooding , land instability, urban fires and conflagration, power failure, have the potential to cause environmental , social economic loss through damage to habitation, life line facilities, and infrastructure. Land uses that fail to recognize the areas prone to hazard risks are not sustainable and can cause communities and the environment unnecessarry harm or damages. Communities need to be developed in a sustainable manner by insuring a close linkage between hazard mitigation and comprehensive land use planning.

Good Urban Governance : Towards greater transparency and accountability

Good governance is an area where Naga has consistently made significant strides on capitalizing on its gains over the past decades, the city has just made a great leap –anchored on the development of the concept that promotes greater transparency and accountability.

A sustainable community also selects hazard reduction and management strategies that evolve from full participation among all public and private stakeholders. Planning is probably the most comprehensive means of creating sustainability and resilience.

Sustainable development is the result of an integral planning process that incorporates (or should incorporate) a number of considerations regarding hazards such as vulnerability and risk reduction strategies aimed at protecting the environment and economic growth. Hence, implementing hazard mitigation policies is a major vehicle, although it is not the only means, and neither will it work in all cases.

With Naga City’s good urban governance experience , such a policy incorporate elements of land use management, construction regulations and private – public participation , these components are strategies that inter linked to promote cooperation among the and the whole of government approach,–truly adheres to the NAGA SMILES to the world concept.

These programs bring several accolades to Naga City where several agencies cited Naga City’s efforts as best practices in local governance, the UNDP-MDG cited Naga as the first LGU to localize MDG Process.

The NDCC Gawad Kalasag Awards bestows Naga’s program to be the best disaster management project. Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program of the ADPC included Naga’s program in their best practices in disaster mitigation in the region.

Recently, the city acquires top of the line urban search and rescue equipment after which a search and rescue team from the Public safety Office underwent a rigid training course in urban search and rescue.

This corps of men is a specialized medical assistance response team, that can go to any disaster stricken area complete with its equipment that can be fielded to water search and rescue, collapsed structure search and rescue, high angle and rough terrain. The team’s composition is multi-discipline; they have a rope rescue technician, structural technician and EMR.

Only last July 2010, Naga City, the contingent garnered the second runner up at the recently concluded 1st National Disaster Response and Search and Rescue Competition held in the province of Albay. Team Naga bested and competed among the country’s best contingents.

This shows how Naga City crafted a number of effective responses to hazards and environmental degradation that helped uplift the quality of life . Specifically it centered on the Naga City Disaster Mitigation Program, and how it helped evolve the Naga City’s risk reduction initiatives, and within the purview of the NAGA SMILES program.