RA 10121

Risks are everywhere, even in the places wee think are safe. Disasters happen frequently and
are identified with different levels of damages and risks that is why these are needed to be prevented
and addressed with awareness. Living in a tropical country and with its geographical position, we are
highly exposed to natural hazards that may lead to various disasters like storm surge, flooding,
landslides, and many more.

On May 27, 2010, the Republic Act 10121 or the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and
Management of 2010 was approved and signed into law by former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. It
is an act made to strengthen the Philippine disaster risk reduction and management and to provide for
the national risk reduction and management framework to institutionalize the national risk reduction
and management plan.

RA 10121 provides a strong legal and institutional basis for DRRM in the country and provide
basis for the polices and plans, implementations of actions and measure pertaining to all aspect of
DRRM, including good governance, risk assessment and early warning, knowledge building and
awareness raising, reduce underlying risk factor, and preparedness for effective response and early
recovery (Section 4, RA No. 10121).

With this LGUs can better address local emergencies and hazards by focusing on its disaster
response and prevention and by public information. Also, by this, LGUs utilize 70 percent of the calamity
fund to risk-reduction and the 30 percent to quick response activities.

Both national and local government units are responsible for disaster management but also as
citizens it is also our responsibility to do our own preparedness, mitigation and communication guided
by the precautions and local hazard maps provided by our respective LGU.