TACLOBAN CITY-Mayor Alfred Romualdez urged the national government to put premium on scientific data during pre and post-disaster event. According to Romualdez, there is a big need for the government now—from the national down to the local level– to “translate” scientific information to the people so that they we will be better understood and be more prepared.
The Tacloban city mayor made this statement during his address of the PH+Social Good Summit held this city on September 20 organized by news online organization Rappler.
Romualdez said that translating scientific information to the people is important so that it could be better appreciated by them. “Now, what are the lessons to be learned here? Yes, we talk about resilience, build back better, post disaster, storm surge, climate change adaptation, those are the world’s topics now that from the national level we got to campaign down to local level so it will be better understood,” the city mayor said. Saying that the city government has its own plans and linkages with other local government units, national agencies play a big role in terms of its manpower and resources, Romualdez stressed.
“We have plans but we have to rely to the national agencies. We have 293 policemen (but) when we were hit by the storm we didn’t get one policeman from the region at all. That’s part of the protocol and we are reviewing it now. That’s why we proposed for linkages with sub-national agencies for that support because they got more resources, manpower,” he said.
Meanwhile, Romualdez pointed out on the need for a critical support on the rehabilitation of the city’s economy, adding that most of the people in the city rely on employment and on their livelihood.
“We were pushing for a Marshall plan but unfortunately this was not approved by the national government,” Romualdez said, referring to the economic stimulus package used by the United States to help revived the economies of European countries during World War II. (RONALD O. REYES)
