Republic of the Philippines

ZamboangaCity State Polytechnic College

GRADUATE SCHOOL
RT Lim Boulevard, Zamboanga City

Vision: ZCSPC as the leading Mission: Provide effective and efficient Core Values:
provider of globally competitive services through advanced technological 1. Love of God and Country
human resources. studies and researches for the 2. Social Responsibility
empowerment of the nation’s human 3. Commitment/Dedication to the service
resources. 4. Accountability

EMERGENCY AND DISASTRER PLAN OF THE SCHOOL: A CASE STUDY

by: Poeta.Nascitur32

A. Abstract

In the context of the changing climate relative to the development and

industrialization of countries in the global spectrum, humanity is

challenged by nature that fights back through calamities. Since then,

people found little and slow measures to mitigate or lessen the effects of

unexpected disasters as such, countries frequently visited by natural

calamities have become vulnerable to severe damage of properties and a

number of casualties. Tropical countries such as the Philippines is prone to

typhoons as it lies in the Pacific Ocean where cyclones are mostly formed.

Being in this location, the Philippines experiences an average of twenty

(20) tropical cyclones every year. Half of these are destructive which

includes other weather hazards such as thunderstorm, heavy rainfall,

southwest and northeast monsoons (DRRRM, 2008). From year 1984 to

2001, Visayas had the most damages and deaths due to typhoons that

visited the country as shown in Table 1 and Table 2 on the next page. In

1990, typhoon Ruping made a damage of 10.85 billion in Central Visayas

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 and in Eastern Visayas, 5,101 deaths were recorded because of typhoon

Uring in the year 1991.

B. Introduction

More than 400 national disasters take place every year, affecting more

than 230 million people and causing an average of almost 75,000 deaths

annually (CRED, 2008).Worldwide, 450 cities with populations over 1 million

face recurring earthquakes.Cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes are among the

deadliest and costliest of disasters.Droughts and desertification currently

affect 250 million people and threaten 1.2 billion people in 110 countries

(UNESCO, 2007). Annually recurring floods regularly prevent millions of

children from attending a full year of school.

Education is a human right, universal and inalienable. Education is

especially important in enabling people to reach their full potential and

exercise other rights. This right does not disappear or get suspended because

of disasters and emergencies. When education is interrupted or limited,

students drop out, with negative and permanent economic and social impacts

for students, their families, and their communities. Natural hazards are part of

the context for educational planning. Whether it is annually recurring floods, a

once-in-5-generations earthquake, the increasing severity of storms and

cyclones, water shortages, or the slow onset of rising sea water levels, these

known and expected hazards can be mitigated with the determined

application of knowledge, education, and ingenuity.

We are not able to prevent the earth from shaking, the wind from

blowing, or the rain from falling. However, with assessment and planning,

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physical and environmental protection and response preparedness we can

prevent these events from becoming disasters. Since schools are our universal

institution for sharing knowledge and skills, the expectations for schools to be

role models in disaster prevention is high. Successful disaster mitigation is

one of the ultimate tests of the success of the education we provide over

generations.

As one of the priority areas of Disaster Risk Reduction and

Management Plan, preparedness plays a vital role in carrying out effective

actions in every sector in response to disasters. Inasmuch as it aims to

strengthen Filipino communities in terms of inculcating disaster awareness

among its people, it is expected that being prepared would eventually lead

them to be safer.

Super Typhoon Yolanda devastated a large area in Eastern Visayas

Region which resulted into vast reparations of properties and mortality of

people. Balangkayan, Eastern Samar is noted to be one of the localities

affected by the typhoon.

The assessment of the Civil Society in Balangkayan, Eastern Samar rest

in accordance to the objectives as indicated in the NDRRMP. These objectives

focus on the increased level of awareness and enhanced capacity of the

community to the threats and impacts of all hazards, skills and capabilities of

communities to cope with the impact of disasters, increased DRRM and CCA

capacity of local DRRM Councils and offices operations centers at all levels,

development and implementation of comprehensive national and local

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preparedness policies, plans and systems, and strengthening of partnership

and coordination among all key players and stakeholders.

C. Current Research

According to Carcellar, Co and Hipolito (2011:367), national and

governments here in the Philippines are mandated to prepare, budgets for,

and implement their climate change and DRRM action plans. Moreover,

Republic Act No 10121 highlights the allocation and use of the 5 per cent of

total local government unit (LGU) budget comprising calamity funds, from

merely post-disaster response to disaster risk management activities such as,

but not limited to, pre-disaster preparedness programmes including training,

purchasing life-saving rescue equipment, supplies and medicines, for post-

disaster activities, and for the payment of premiums on calamity insurance

(Carcellar, Co and Hipolito, 2011:367). Gaillard and Mercer (2012:99), on the

other hand, claims that making DRR integrative in policy and practice is a

much more complicated assignment as a significant number of obstacles arise

on part of the Local Government officials accountable for initiating disaster

preparedness. Miller, Adam and Moore (2013:2) states that a very few people

actually take effective steps to prepare for potential disasters. Moreover, the

abovementioned authors asserts that at some point, there has been a failure

in communication between government and the public, such that many

people remain unaware of the importance, the benefits and the methods

necessary for adequate preparedness in the face of catastrophic events

(2013:19). In line with this, an importance of strong coordination and

participation of the local government and the civil society should be realized

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in order to increase the resilience and disaster preparedness of a community.

People in certain regions of the world who have direct experience with

particular risk situations are likely to have stronger and more accessible

attitudes regarding the consequences of related behavior and form attitudes

and perceptions about risk with relatively higher levels of certainty relevant to

potential outcomes (Miller, Adam and Moore, 2013:6). As pointed by Cox

(2012:1931-32), emphasizing resilience also changes the kinds of questions

that risk managers pay most attention to; for instance is identifying different

disaster scenarios that might occur, along with alternative plans and courses

of action to be followed if they occur.

The world is changing rapidly and together with development comes

the negative effects of this changing world. In the past few years, people

have encountered a number of disasters that eventually took lives and

destroyed structures and properties. Consequently, previous studies have

been made with regards to disaster preparedness in order to somehow lessen

the damages experienced by citizens. With the damages and the loss of lives,

the government as an entity that protects its citizens, also made efforts in

diminishing these losses through making policies for disaster preparedness. In

the Philippines, the government showed its efforts in preparing for disasters

and addressing environmental issues in the shift from Presidential Decree

1566 towards Disaster Risk Reduction and Management together with the

implementation of R.A. 10121 or The Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and

Management Act of 2010. The national and local governments are mandated

to prepare, budget for and implement their climate change and DRRM action

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plans (Carcellar et al., 2011:367). However, as cited by Robert Wolensky and

Kenneth Wolensky in their study, the locality being the closest to the disaster

is also the component with the smallest relative resources and with the least

access to resources through its constituency. Because of this, the local

government is often forced to allocate resources such that hazard

management is not a high priority (Perry, 1985:5). Without a sufficient

amount of budget or resources in order to prepare for upcoming disasters

such as providing safe evacuation centers, life jackets, medical kits, food and

water supplies, etc., laws and policies for disaster preparedness will be

useless unless the local government generate funds on their own for disaster

risk reduction, which on one hand, not usually the case. The importance of

local government as the entity that experiences actual risk was supported

with Daniel Henstra’s study asserting that the local government plays a key

role in emergency management by developing the necessary policies and

concrete procedures for responding effectively to community emergencies

and their aftermath (2010:236).

Because emergencies occur suddenly, the effectiveness of a

community’s response depends in large part on the preparations that a local

government has made in advance (Henstra, 2010:238). Furthermore, Dekens

asserted that the existence and usefulness of local knowledge rarely received

attention and that the emphasis of most academic work, both nationally and

internationally, has been on the latest, ‘advanced’ geophysical knowledge and

technical systems as the most effective disaster response mechanisms. She

also added that the considerable body of work on local knowledge remained

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as marginal as many of the people whose knowledge it was partly due to the

enormous technical-social perpectives’ divide and the privilege accorded the

‘expertise’ approach which emphasises formal education and degrees instead

of life experience (2007:3). In a study conducted by Gaillard and Mercer, it

was emphasized that in many cases, effective local strategies continue to be

overlooked in favour of scientific knowledge, which is not necessarily

appropriate or applicable to the context in which it is applied (2012:100). It

can be argued that despite the fact that the local government directly

experiences the effects of disasters, little attention is given in improving its

disaster preparedness locally. Moreover, community-based disaster

preparedness approaches are increasingly important elements of vulnerability

reduction and disaster management strategies. In addition, they are

associated with a policy trend that values the knowledge and capacities of

local people and builds on local resources, including social capital (Allen,

2006:81). In this case, the local government should initiate developing locally-

based disaster preparedness plans which corresponds to the needs of the

citizens in times of disaster.

D. Background Information

School safety and educational continuity require a dynamic, continuous

process initiated by management and involving workers, students, parents,

and the local community. School disaster management involves the familiar

cycle of steps found in all project management: assess hazards,

vulnerabilities, capacities and resources; plan and implement for physical risk

reduction, maintenance of safe facilities, standard operating procedures and

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training for disaster response; test mitigation and preparedness plans and

skills regularly, with realistic simulation drills; and revise your plan based on

your experience. School disaster management mirrors individual and family

disaster prevention, and wider community disaster prevention efforts. This

guidance document is organized to help remember and observe the parallel

processes for disaster prevention that are taken up at every level of society.

The full scope of activities is included as follows:

1. Assessment and planning – establishing or empowering your

school disaster management committee; assessing your risks, hazards,

vulnerabilities and capacities;making contingency plans for educational

continuity; communicating your plan.

2. Physical and environmental protection – structural safety

maintenance, nonstructural mitigation; local infrastructure and

environmental mitigation; fire safety.

3. Response capacity development – standard operating

procedures; response skills and organization; response provisions.

E. Recommendations and Conclusions

School safety is the job of the entire school community. This effort

requires leadership and coordination by school administration, and

involvement and participation from all sectors of the school community. Each

school should establish and maintain an ongoing School Disaster Management

Committee to oversee disaster risk reduction and preparedness. This may be

the job of a pre-existing committee, sub-committee with a similar mission, or

one newly established for this purpose. This committee develops, adapts,

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implements, and updates the school disaster management plan. It will

typically meet intensively at the beginning of each school year and monthly

during the school year. It will encourage personal and organizational

preparedness, guide mitigation work, assure two fire and building evacuation

drills annually, lead one full simulation drill annually, evaluate the results, and

adjust the plan accordingly. Ideally, the committee is empowered by and

maintains formal links between school and disaster management authorities.

School Disaster Management Committee members need strong

leadership which is ideally the school principal or the school. The committee is

most effective when it involves representatives of all major stakeholder

groups, such as school administration;teachers,staff, police, fire services,

emergency management authorities, neighborhood association, local business

partners, school board, and neighborhood elected officials, vulnerable groups

members whose needs might be overlooked, and students.

Members should remember that resilience is not accomplished all at

once, but is a continuous process that can be broken down into small steps.

Every small step is important in reaching the goals of safety and educational

continuity. The committee might start by creating a calendar of activities to

develop awareness and build momentum throughout the school year.

F. REFERENCES

Albrito, Paola. Making Cities Resilient: Increasing Resilience to Disasters at the

Local Level. Journal of Business Community and Emergency Planning
Vol. 5, No. 4, 2012.

Allen, Katrina. Community-based disaster preparedness and climate

adaptation: local capacity- building in the Philippines. USA: Blackwell
Publishing, 2006.

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BBC News. November 22, 2013. “Typhoon Haiyan death toll rises over 5,000”
Retrieved from <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-25051606>

Burchill, Scott, Andrew Linklater, Richard Devetak, Jack Donnelly, Matthew

Paterson, Christian Reus Smith and Jacqui True. Theories of
International Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Carcellar, Norberto, Jason Christopher Rayos Co and Zarina Hipolito.

Addressing Disaster Risk Reduction through Community-rooted
interventions in the Philippines: experience of the Homeless People’s
Federation of the Philippines. Sage Publication, 2011.

Cox, Louis Anthony, Jr. Community Resilience and Decision Theory Challenges
for Catastrophic Events. Risk Analysis, Vol. 32, No. 11, 2012.

Dekens, Julie. Local Knowledge for Disaster Preparedness. Kathmandu, Nepal:

International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, 2007.

Gaillard, J.C. and Jessica Mercer. From Knowledge to Action: Bridging gaps in
Disaster Risk Reduction. Sage Publication, 2012.

Miller, Claude, Bradley Adame, and Scott Moore. Vested Interest Theory and
Disaster Preparedness. USA: Blackwell Publishing, 2013.

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