Challenges and Opportunities of Information Management in Disaster Preparedness: The Case of Legazpi City, Albay Province

Introduction

The Philippines is considered as one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. With an average of 15 to 20 typhoons hitting the country annually, national policies and programs created to address the adverse effects of these natural events. In particular, the landmark 2010 legislation on disaster risk reduction management (Republic Act 10121), resulted in a paradigm shift on how disaster management is conducted in the country. The law empowers local governments to allocate resources to enable it to respond to disaster events. It also institutionalized disaster risk reduction management (DRRM) in governance through the creation of regional, provincial level disaster offices as well as the integration of DRR in the planning process of the local governments. However, a closer examination of the current Philippine disaster risk reduction management (DRRM) practices reveal its traditional civil defense-oriented nature. This nature is characterized by top-down (unidirectional) programs and information that are focused on disaster response and rehabilitation. Furthermore, it has a centralized nature that places much responsibility on the shoulders of the national government, thus treating local governments and its constituents as disaster aid recipients rather than active partners. On the other hand, a closer examination of the prevailing literature reveals a myriad of new practices that highlights the importance of determining demands, needs and on how to leverage indigenous information sources from local communities. These practices are often governed by social relations, use of information communications technology (ICT) and community data being managed at the village and local government levels.

In this paper, we examined the current community DRR practices using the disaster information management (DIM) perspective. In this view, our efforts focused on the following DIM concepts: a) Information flow and use; b) Identification of data sources and c) ICT tools used by the community and parish-based DRR actors.

To further understand the needs and practices, we adopted a qualitative-descriptive research design focusing on the Diocese of Legazpi and selected participants from the city government of Legazpi, Albay and selected members of the academe. At the end of the paper, we presented recommendations on how to further enhance DIM practices and discussed the future directions of our work.