SUMMIT ON DISASTER-PREPAREDNESS KICKS-OFF IN CDO FEBRUARY 18

Cagayan de Oro will host of the first salvo of a series of high-level meetings on disaster-preparedness on February 18 and 19, 2012 where national and local government leaders and non-government organizations in Mindanao will converge in an attempt to draw up a comprehensive and uniform safety plan in the event of natural or man-made calamities.

Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III, who initiated the disaster-preparedness summit said the activity seeks to get as many inputs as possible from stakeholders and concerned sectors all over the country to draw up a comprehensive, uniform and detailed easy-to-follow procedure for government officials and the private sector to refer to in the event of calamities.

Invited to attend the first summit, which will be held at the Dynasty Court Hotel are members of the House of Representatives representing the Mindanao region, governors and mayors and leaders of various private non government institutions in Mindanao.

The senator from Mindanao said holding the first of several high-level discussions on disaster-preparedness in Cagayan de Oro is symbolic considering the city lost more than a thousand of its residents in the recent typhoon Sendong in December.

Our peoples' serious resolve to prevent the loss of more lives in the event of calamities, cannot but be over-emphasized because of the tragic lessons learned by the people of Cagayan de Oro, Iligan and Dumaguete from Sendong, Pimentel said.

Pimentel said there will be a series of similar summits on disaster-preparedness in the other regions of the country so that the people can devise and make use of a collective strategy to cope with typhoons, earthquakes, landslides, floods, and other calamities.

He also emphasized that insights from sectors living in cities not necessarily prone to disasters will also be welcome.

Pimentel assured that not a single peso will be wasted in the efforts to draw up a disaster preparedness plan. "Even if only one life is saved out of a well-drawn disaster preparedness plan, resulting from the proposed summit, then it would be all worth the effort," Pimentel stressed.

The senator from Mindanao proposed a national summit on disaster-preparedness, in the light of several natural and man made calamities that had caused the loss of thousands of fatalities many of them women and children, and hundreds of millions of pesos in damages to government infrastructures and to private properties.