Zarate urges Senate to fast-track bill creating permanent evacuation centers

A lawmaker on Monday called on the Senate to hasten its version of a measure seeking the establishment of permanent evacuation centers following the onslaught of Tropical Depression Agaton in the Visayas region.

“A secure and safer evacuation place has long been the desire of our people living in disaster-prone areas and it behooves on congress to finally heed this oft-repeated lamentation," Bayan Muna party-list Representative Carlos Isagani Zarate said in a statement.

“The fact that the Philippines is a country often visited by typhoons yearly, the government has to undertake measures while waiting for the completion of a comprehensive disaster preparedness program and its eventual implementation,” he added.

Zarate said lives could be saved if there will be sturdy, typhoon-resilient, and climate change-adaptive evacuation centers.

He said these facilities should be located at a distance which are safe from waters and landslide-prone areas in every two to three contiguous barangays.

“It should have a stockpile of food and water as well as isolation centers and clinics. It can also house generators and secured cell sites so that there would be communications even if other towers are down," Zarate said.

In 2021, Senator Sherwin Gatchalian called for the establishment of permanent evacuation centers, especially in disaster-prone areas.

Gatchalian is the author of Senate Bill 747 or the proposed Evacuation Center Act.

In March of last year, the House of Representatives approved House Bill 8990 or An Act Establishing Evacuation Centers in Every Centers in Every City and Municipality, and Appropriating Funds Therefore.

The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) has said 172 were reported dead due to Agaton.

Search operations continue as there are still 110 individuals missing. — Anna Felicia Bajo/RSJ, GMA News