CoA cites enhancement in QC’s disaster preparedness program

THE QUEZON City government implemented eight out of nine recommendations for the enhancement of its disaster preparedness program, the Commission on Audit (CoA) said in a report.����

CoA, in an audit report released on Dec. 27, said the city government “has been consistently preparing and updating its Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM) Plans annually” since a performance assessment in 2017.��������

The state auditors’ recommendations included the following: compliance with the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (LDRRM) Fund, specification of Gender and Development projects under the LDRRM plan, regular review and revision of the annual LDRRM plan, assurance that performance measures are aligned with the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management plan, and monitoring of the progress of projects through tracking and evaluation tools, among others.����

The report also showed that the city’s DRRM office distributed a disaster preparedness guidebook and “identified the hazards, vulnerabilities and risk assessment in Quezon City for earthquake, flood, human-induced disasters, as well as high-risk/hotspot areas for each hazard in its QCDRRM Plan 2014-2020.”����

However, CoA’s recommendation of ensuring performance measures were aligned with the national disaster management plan was only partially implemented.����

CoA further recommended that the city “should continue to review and fine tune the performance indicators, targets and baselines with the program goals and objectives to be more specific and measurable.”����

Disaster preparedness refers to an organization’s capacity to “effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from, the impacts of likely, imminent or current hazard events or conditions,” according to the CoA report. — Beatriz Marie D. Cruz��