Purok system makes communities extra resilient towards disasters

In 2011, San Francisco in Camotes Island, Cebu, received the UN Sasakawa Award for Catastrophe Danger Discount for its purok system

MANILA, Philippines – Catastrophe response can solely be as efficient as city officers need it to be if it consists of leaders from the smallest unit of the city: the purok (village zone) leaders.

In Cagwait, a fourth-class municipality in Surigao del Sur which was badly hit by Hurricane Odette in December 2021, catastrophe response works by way of a “purok (village zone) system” the place purok leaders lead threat assessments and planning.

“Every purok has an evacuation plan,” Cagwait Mayor Glenn Batiancila mentioned in a discussion board on Wednesday, October 29. “Each family maintains a household catastrophe preparedness plan assigning particular roles to its members throughout emergencies and evacuation.”

Households are included in purok-level conferences, mentioned Batiancila. The Cagwait mayor mentioned that by happening to every purok for catastrophe preparedness and response, “we strengthen our neighborhood possession.” Households would have a route in case of emergency and know the place to go, mentioned Batiancila.

Batiancila spoke at a session throughout a resilience discussion board organized by the Division of the Inside and Native Authorities and Experience France, a subsidiary of the French authorities funding establishment, Agence française de développement.

In 2011, San Francisco in Camotes Island, Cebu, received the United Nations Sasakawa Award for Catastrophe Danger Discount for its purok system. Then-vice mayor Alfredo Arquillano was quoted in a authorities launch: “Suppose huge, begin small.”

An aspiration for the massive metropolis

That is additionally an aspiration of Quezon Metropolis, essentially the most populous metropolis within the nation.

“Our dream actually is that in the future the CDRRMO (Metropolis Catastrophe Danger Discount Administration Workplace) personnel is not going to be responding to any incident, as a result of it’s already the barangays who’re doing the primary response,” Maria Bianca Perez, head of Quezon Metropolis Catastrophe Danger Discount Administration Workplace, mentioned in the identical session.

Perez admitted that there stays a scarcity of technical capacities on the barangay (village) degree which they attempt to deal with by way of constant trainings.

Nearly 50% of their workplace’s funds goes to prevention and preparedness applications, mentioned Perez, and 30% of this funds goes to capability improvement.

“The purok leaders, the sitio leaders also needs to know and perceive that technical data,” Perez mentioned.

Yearly, Quezon Metropolis caters to a mean variety of 6,000 households in evacuation facilities, in line with Perez. On high of this, preparations for a big metropolis meant considering distinctive geographies all the way down to the villages.

“We don’t miss a coaching program for our barangays,” Perez mentioned.

The Philippines ranked first within the World Danger Index 2025, an evaluation of catastrophe threat amongst 193 international locations worldwide.

Regardless of this, the report famous that the Philippines’ decentralized method to catastrophe administration “display(s) the influence of fine governance.” Efficient governance, the report mentioned, is essential in a neighborhood’s capability to answer flooding.

The Philippines is dedicated to the implementation of the Sendai Framework, a global settlement for catastrophe threat discount. – Rappler.com