MA PÚA UNIVERSITY – NATIONAL SERVICE TRAINING PROGRAM

DISASTER AWARENESS, PREPAREDNESS, AND MANAGEMENT

In implementation of Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, the NSTP shall be guided with reference
from:

Republic Act 9163

Section 11. The creation of the National Service Reserve Corps – There is hereby created a National Service
Reserve Corps, to be composed of the graduates of the non-ROTC components. Members of this corps may
be tapped by the state for literacy and civic welfare activities through the joint effort of the DND, CHED, and
TESDA.

Republic Act 10121- Philippine Disaster Reduction and Management Act

Section 13. Accreditation, Mobilization and Protection of Disaster Volunteers and National Service Reserve
Corps, CSOs and the Private Sector. – The government agencies, CSOs, private sector and LGUs may
mobilize individuals or organized volunteers to augment their respective personnel complement and
logistical requirements in the delivery of disaster risk reduction program and activities. The agencies, CSOs,
private sector and LGUs concerned shall take full responsibility for the enhancement, welfare and protection
of volunteers, and shall submit the lists of volunteers to the OCD, through the LDRRMOs for accreditation
and conclusion in the database of community disaster volunteers.

A national roster of ACDVs, National Service Reserve Corps, CSOs and the private sector shall be
maintained by the OCD through the LDRRMOs. Accreditation shall be done at the municipal level.

Mobilization of volunteers shall be in accordance with the guidelines to be formulated by the NDRRMC
consistent with the provisions of this Act. Any volunteer who incurs death or injury while engaged in any of
the activities defined under this Act shall be entitled to compensatory benefits and individual personnel
accident insurance as may be defined under the guidelines.

Introduction to Disaster Awareness, Preparedness and Management

The Philippines is located in the circumpacific belt of fire and typhoon. This being so, the country has
always been subjected to natural disaster and calamities anytime of the year, in whatever part of the
country, we have been experiencing yearly natural calamities – floods, typhoons, tornadoes, earthquakes,
drought, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions which have brought incessant miseries to our people, loss of lives
properties.

In the mid-seventies and eighties, strong typhoons and torrential rains brought devastation to Manila and
large areas of central Luzon. The 1990 killer earthquake that hit several Luzon provinces as well as Metro
Manila and the effects of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption had put the National Disaster Coordinating Council
(NDCC) in the forefront.

To enhance the people’s preparedness and ensure precision and spontaneity in responding to emergencies
or catastrophes, the NDCC, together with the concerned agencies conduct regular mobilization exercises
and drills at all levels with the participation of the private agencies concerned and the non-government
organization.

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DEFINITION OF TERMS

Here are the terminologies often used in disaster response and rescue operations:

• CALAMITY – refers to a situation that is associated with catastrophic events where a number of
persons are plunged with hardship and suffering that are caused by problems like shortage of
food, clothing, medical care and other basic necessities.

• DISASTERS – are progressive or sudden events brought about by natural or human-induced

hazards that cause losses and sufferings to consequence of which results to people and
communities undertaking extra- ordinary measures to cope with their impacts.

• DISASTER CONTROL – refers to the act of limiting the effect of disaster through the introduction
of measures designed to prepare the inhabitants before, during and after a disaster.

• DISASTER MANAGEMENT – the efficient and effective utilization of resources and the application
of measure that will mitigate the impact of unfortunate events and facilitate return to normalcy and
redevelopment.

• FLOOD – a state or condition when water overflows from natural waterways caused by heavy
rainfall resulting in the water accumulation in low lying areas.

• HAZARDS – are natural or man-induced phenomena or activities, the presence of which poses a
threat to people’s lives, limbs, properties and socio-economic conditions.

• NATIOANAL DISASTER COORDINATING COUNCIL – the highest government body

responsible in advising the President of the country on the status of disaster preparedness program
and disaster relief and rehabilitation effort at the national level

• POLLUTION – refers to any discharge of liquid, solid substance or gases into land, soil, waters,
atmosphere, air or space which will create or render such environmental elements and
atmospheric air harmful or detrimental or injurious to human beings, animals, plants and the
nature’s environment and ecological balance.

• RADIO ACTIVE FALL-OUT – dust particles of Earth and debris, together with the radioactive
materials that cling to them and are drawn up into mushroom clouds resulting from detonation of a
nuclear weapon or devise and which are carried by the wind and sent back to earth.

• REHABILITATION – refers to the restoration of a person’s economic dependency to a stable living

either physically, economically, socially or emotionally.

• RELIEF – refers to anything that is done to alleviate the condition of those who are suffering from
the effects of a calamity/disaster and who at that particular time are completely helpless.

• RISKS – refers to the degree or chance and frequency that such hazards will affect or impact
people and communities.

• SPACE DEBRIS – these are remains of artificial satellites and other components as well as their
means of carriage aloft which fall back to earth.

• STATE OF CALAMITY – it is a condition that is declared by the President of the country in the
event of a widespread destruction to property and lives due to destructive forces of nature and
emergencies.
 • VOLCANIC ERUPTION – an occurrence characterized by an ejection of volcanic materials such as
molten lava, rock fragments, ashes, lahar flow, steam and other gases through the fissure brought
about the tremendous pressure which forces open the rock formation or steam reservoirs beneath
the Earth’s crust.

• VULNERABILITY – the level of susceptibility or resiliency of the people and communities against
the impact of the prevailing hazards based on the state of physical, social, and economic conditions
in a given area.
THE DISASTER EQUATION AND THE DISASTER MANAGEMENT CYCLE

Disaster is characterized by several elements namely hazards, risk, people or community and vulnerability.
Hazards

(H) or the physical impact of the disturbance, either man-made or natural, is heightened by the amount of
risk (R) to the people and the community. Moreover, the degree of the vulnerability (V) of all the involved
further fuels the magnitude of a disaster. This is presented in the Disaster Equations as shown below:

H x R + V = DISASTERS
The concept of disaster risk management accepts that some hazard events may occur but tries to lessen
the impact by improving the community’s ability to absorb the impact with minimum damage or destruction.
The Disaster Management Cycle is a traditional approach to disaster management wherein disaster measure
is regarded as a number of phased sequences of action or a continuum. It aims to reduce the
vulnerabilities in the community. In addition, when sustained over long term, it reduces unacceptable risk to
acceptable levels and makes a community become disaster resistant or resilient. This is represented as a
cycle. This is illustrated below:

a. Pre-Disaster Risk Reduction Phase

• Preparedness
• Development
• Mitigation
b. Post-Disaster Recovery Phase
• Response
• Rehabilitation
• Recovery
The comprehensive risk management process has the potential to break the cycle of damage and
reconstruction when a community is subjected to repeated natural hazards. It refers to a range of policies,
legislative mandates, professional practices, social, structural and non- structural adjustments and risk
transfer mechanisms to prevent, reduce or minimize the effects of hazards on a community. To be effective,
a strategy must be in place and ready for immediate implementation when necessary. This can only be
done through advance preparation and planning.

The following are risk management measures:

a. Engineering measures (keep hazard away from people).
b. Land use planning and management measures (Keep people away from hazard).
c. Control and protection works (modifying the hazard).
d. Early warning (predicting hazard)
e. Preparedness planning (prepare in anticipation of a hazard event).
f. Reconstruction planning after a disaster with the aim of reducing the vulnerability.
g. Mainstreaming risk management in development practice and institutionalization.

INTRODUCTION OF MORSE CODE AND DIFFERENT WAYS TO SIGNAL SOS

It is a method of transmitting information of a series of on-off tones, or clicks that can be directly
understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment. It is named for Samuel F. B. Morse,
an inventor of the telegraph. The International Morse code encodes the ISO basic Latin alphabet, some
extra Latin letters, the Arabic numerals and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals (prosigns) as
standardized sequences of short and long signals called “dots” and “dashes”, or “dits”, as in amateur radio
practice. Because many non- English natural languages use more than 26 Roman letters, extensions to the
Morse alphabet exist for those languages.

Each Morse code symbol represents either a text character (letter or numeral) or a prosign and is represent
by a unique sequence of dots and dashes. The duration of a dash is three times the duration of a dot. Each
dot or dash is followed by as short silence, equal to the dot duration. The letters of a word are separated by
a space equal to three dots (one dash), and the words are separated by a space equal to seven dots. The
dot duration is the basic unit of time measurement in code transmission. To increase the speed of the
communication, the code was designed so that the length of each character in Morse varies approximately
inversely to its frequency of occurrence in English. Thus the most common letter in English, the letter “E”,
has the shortest code, a single dot.

In an emergency, Morse code can be sent by improvised methods that can be easily “keyed” on an off,
making it one of the simplest and most useful methods of telecommunication. The most distress signal is
Save Our Soul (SOS) or three dots, three dashes and three dots, internationally recognized by treaty.

DIFFERENT WAYS TO SIGNAL SOS

a. Fire – Build three first in a triangle or in a straight line, with about 100 feet between them. Three
fires are an internationally recognized distress signal.
b. Whistle – The International Whistle Code for helps is much easier. All you have to do
to signal SOS is to blow the whistle three times. Two blasts of the whistle is a call
-back signal which means “Come here”. One blast can mean “Where are you?” or it
can be a call -back signal if you hear anything that sound like a code.

c. Flashlight or Mobile Phone – If you have a target you are attempting to signal, flash
out SOS in Morse (three short flashes, three long flashes, three short flashes) in its
direction. If you don’t have a flashlight use your mobile phone. That of course,
assuming that you don’t have signal to make calls

d. Torch – Built a fire you can signal SOS at night using torch. Find something to cover
the light of the torch from the angle of the targeted plane, ship or helicopter. Move the
objects that covers the light to signal SOS

e. Parts of your body – Wave your arms and hands sideways and down to attract attention. If
the potential rescue vehicle is close, simply stand