The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has taken a proactive approach to enhance the agency’s disaster response capability in Mindanao through a potential partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian discussed the possible collaboration with USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for Asia (DAA) Sara Borodin and USAID Mission Director Ryan Washburn during their joint visit at the National Resource Operations Center (NROC) in Pasay City on Thursday (February 22).

The DSWD chief explained that part of the directive of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr is for the national government to be proactive in disaster response, considering that some local government units (LGU) still face challenges on how to swiftly respond to the needs of their constituents during calamities.

“The paradigm now, which the President said, is that he wants a sustained effort from the national government (during times of disasters),” Secretary Gatchalian pointed out.

For this reason, the DSWD, according to Secretary Gatchalian has set up “close to around 700 warehouses, we call last-mile warehouses” and continues to explore other infrastructure projects for disaster response.

Explaining that the Department’s budget is allocated for mostly grants to its clients, the DSWD chief underscored the importance of the warehouse visit of the USAID officials as an opportunity to explore possible fund sources for establishing facilities that will increase its capacity in disaster response.

“We get in trouble when we want to build a facility, let’s say in Mindanao, we have to do the lobbying, which I am doing right now. Now that we have a land, we have to do the lobbying,” Secretary Gatchalian explained.

“It is always in terms of how much you can give people, not what you can build. That’s our restrictions in terms of budget,” the DSWD chief  added.

Secretary Gatchalian pointed out the Butuan Local Government Unit has transferred the ownership of a 5-hectare land to the DSWD, which can be used for the establishment of the said facility in Mindanao.

The DSWD chief noted it is high time to establish a mega warehouse facility in Southern Philippines as “Mindanao has become a hotbed for climate change”.

Part of the warehouse visit of the USAID officials at NROC was a walking gallery, which was presented by the DSWD Secretary to the development partners.

Showing the pictures at the gallery walk, Secretary Gatchalian said the DSWD established big warehouses such as the NROC and the Visayas Disaster Resource Center (VDRC) in Cebu as a lesson learned from the country’s long history and extensive experience in disasters.

“This packing center , and the Cebu packing center were born out of Typhoon Yolanda, funded by international aid agencies, run by the Filipinos through the capacity building training that we get,” the DSWD chief stressed.

The warehouse tour at the NROC was facilitated by the World Food Programme – Philippines (WFP) and is part of the country visit of USAID DAA Borodin to the Philippines, which aims to understand the disaster response capacity of the Philippine government and acknowledge the impactful partnerships forged through the grants to the WFP.

Among those who visited the NROC were WFP Country Director a.i. Dipayan Bhattacharyya and other WFP officials including WFP Emergency Coordinator Hannes Goegele, and WFP Supply Chain Officer Joao Merencio.

Accompanying the DSWD chief in the NROC visit were Undersecretary for Disaster Response and Management Group Diana Cajipe, Special Assistant to the Secretary (SAS) for Disaster Response and Management Group (DRMG) and National Resource and Logistics Management Bureau (NRLMB)  concurrent Director Leo Quintilla, and Disaster Response Management Bureau (DRMB) Director Michael Cristopher Mathay.#