Between September and December 2012, President Benigno Aquino 3rd pressed then Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Nicanor Bartolome to retire well before his scheduled exit from PNP in March.

PNoy wanted the successor to have several months before the May elections to get police in gear. Bartolome finally relented and turned over to current PNP Director General Alan Purisima, Aquino’s bodyguard when his mother was president.

That forward planning, however, was absent when Benito Ramos quit as executive director of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) last week, after months of asking to leave. It seems the life-and-death matter of warning, rescuing and protecting millions of Filipinos threatened by floods, typhoons, earthquake, eruption, disease and man-made calamity, isn’t as high in the administration’s priority list as the elections.

Unfortunately, the oversight is just the latest sign of how much lower in Palace priorities disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) is than the political jousts, on which the President lavishes time and clout, from pet bills and impeachment to elections and the detention and prosecution of his predecessor.

Just last month, instead of convening the disaster council after weeks of warnings about Typhoon Pablo, Aquino lobbied lawmakers for the reproductive health bill on the very day the super-storm made landfall in Mindanao. Nor has he followed up disaster initiatives he himself had ordered or floated amid major calamities.

Remember the Typhoon Sendong inquiry into government and private sector culpability for the December 2011 killer floods in north and central Mindanao? Nothing has come of it, even as Aquino ordered another probe after Pablo brought even more death and devastation to the south, with the unprecedented body count possibly hitting 2,000.

Also lacking presidential prodding is the P352-billion flood control master plan for Metro Manila and nearby provinces, which PNoy announced amid monsoon mega-floods in August 2012, including the relocation of some 130,000 families from flood-prone riverbanks and lake shores. This year’s P144-billion infrastructure budget earmarked P15.3 billion for flood control—less than 5 percent of the master plan figure.

Even a PNoy pet peeve since 2010—people’s refusal to heed disaster alerts—is only now set to be addressed. More than three years after the Philippines and Australia agreed in November 2010 on a Metro Manila DRRM program, including warning and evacuation measures, NDRRMC is set to receive only next week proposals for a strategic communications plan to instill in communities an awareness of calamity dangers and a readiness to get out of harm’s way when told to do so.

In this election year, DRRM will get even less Malacañang attention outside the presidential soundbites on yet more plans and investigations, plus the occasional photo-ops of PNoy distributing relief goods. Legislators and local officials will also give calamity prevention and response less priority amid their campaign for votes till May. The election ban on public construction will further delay flood control projects.

With political leaders from the President down too busy campaigning to prevent future disaster losses in lives and livelihoods, other institutions and groups must step up to prod agencies and LGUs on DRRM measures and undertakings. Otherwise, Filipinos by the millions will again be left unguarded and unaided when the rains return.

In particular, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and nationwide civic groups like Rotary and Jaycees, should take up this life-and-death advocacy. So too should the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation led by magnate Manuel Pangilinan and grouping major corporations for calamity prevention.

First priority for this religious-business-citizens initiative should be DRRM coordination and community preparedness, especially in the most vulnerable areas. These places must gear up in the months before the June to September storms, and not wait until after the May elections for national and local authorities to finally turn again to the people’s real problems.

The good news for would-be DRRM advocates and action group is that what needs to be done has been extensively and thoroughly researched, analyzed and formulated. Among the plethora of in-depth studies with both short- and long-term recommendations are the World Risk Report 2012, where the Philippines is the most calamity prone major country on the planet; the NDRRM Law and the Strategic National Action Plan for DRRM, both crafted with local and global experts. Also with many disaster prevention proposals is the Climate Change Commission’s strategic plan for adaptation.

A further recommendation for religious, business and citizens’ groups to push is the creation and empowerment of a full-time Cabinet-level Secretary for DRRM, as argued in our December 7, 2012, column. This would ensure that initiatives to prevent and cope with catastrophes get paramount advocacy, ample funding and constant prodding, even if national leaders have other priorities.

The US’s Global Trends 2030 study, quoted in The CenSEI Report on climatic projections ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ), warned: “Recent weather has been characterized by an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events—floods, droughts, tornadoes, glacial lake outbreaks, extreme coastal high-water levels, heat waves, etc.—and this pattern almost certainly will continue during the next 20 years.”

Those who value life should not wait for the politicians and their soundbites and photo-ops, but get the nation moving on DRRM now.

Ricardo Saludo serves Bahay ng Diyos Foundation for church repair. He heads the Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence, publisher of The CenSEI Report on national and global issues ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).