(Pagadian City) – To multiply technical people who would assist the barangays in making their Barangay Hazard Maps, the Department of the Interior and Local Government Region IX trained trainers on the Geographic Information System (GIS) for Disaster Preparedness and Response (DPR) on August 18-20, 2014 at Chandler Suites Hotel, Pagadian City.
Some 50 participants from the targeted city and municipality attended that include the Disaster Risk Reduction Management Officers, Planning and Development Coordinators, Local Government Operations Officers, Information Technology Planning and Development Officers and the Engineers coming from the provinces of Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibugay.
In a message delivered on the behalf of Regional Director Paisal O. Abutazil, Assistant Regional Director Pedro G. Cuevas said that the Local Government Units (LGUs), being at the forefront of disasters, play a very crucial role in disaster preparedness and management and thus, the prime movers at the local levels have to be fully capacitated and equipped with the technical know-how in all aspects of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (DRRM).
” Hence, this training aims to capacitate the local government units in generating LGU maps through the use of GIS, a set of tools for storing, retrieving, and transforming the displayed spatial data from the real world for particular set of purposes.” he said.
ARD Cuevas continued that disasters can strike anywhere at any time. We may not know when it will exactly come. However, we can always be prepared and we have to move now.
“There is no substitute for preparedness and now is but the right time to be proactive in our actions and measures so as to prevent the further large scale destructions in the future”.
He assured that with the available technological resources, we can be sure that our efforts will not go futile.
“Let us work hand-in-hand, support each other’s initiatives and eventually our objective of a disaster-resilient and safe communities will be achieved”, he said in closing.
Within the three-day training workshop facilitated by Engr. Cyrus B. Bayawa of DENR IX, the participants were oriented on the use of GIS application in determining vulnerable areas.
Relative to the conduct, DRRM Regional Focal Person Teresita Catalbas remarked that training on GIS is important for participants to appreciate the use of hazard maps linked to planning as it is also prerequisite to Local Climate Change Adaptation Plan (LCCAP) set by December 2014.
Identified participants were coming from Dipolog City, Dapitan City, Siocon and Labason of Zamboanga del Norte; Bayog, Margosatubig, Molave and Pagadian City of Zamboanga del Sur; and Diplahan, and Imelda of Zamboanga Sibugay as well as the City of Zamboanga.