The team conducted a Seminar-Workshop “Reimagining Disaster Governance and DRRM in the Philippines” last July 27-28, 2017 at Legazpi City. It is a 2-day event which consists of a short seminar, a write shop, and a round table discussion participated by various stakeholders including civil society organizations, non-government organizations, media, police, the Department of Education, local government representatives, and state universities and colleges (SUCs) from Region 5. It was made possible through a partnership with the Social Action Center (SAC) of the Diocese of Legazpi, a church-based, non-stock, non-profit organization.
On the first day of the workshop, Dr. Emmanuel Lallana discussed the potentials of ICT, including social media, in various phases of disaster risk management cycle. The afternoon session focused on disaster informatics where Dr. Sherwin Ona presented evidences as to how it is related to community informatics. He also presented the initial result of the study on disaster management practices of Legazpi and Iligan City. They also presented examples of initiatives on ICT and disaster led by Ushahidi, OpenStreetMap among others.
The second day focused on documenting the DRRM practices of different stake holdeders through a writeshop with the participants. They were guided by questionnaires prepared by the team. It was followed by a round table discussion (RTD) between state universities and colleges entitled, “Leveraging the use of ICT in DRRM: Lessons and Insights from the SUCs of Region 5”. This RTD aims to harness the inputs and ideas of researchers in the area of disaster risk reduction and the use of ICT from the SUCs of Region 5. Ideas and inputs were framed based on opportunities and challenges of the five ICT dimensions for development which includes policies, infrastructure, capacity, content, and ICT Applications. It was found out that community mapping is one of the priorities of the stakeholders.
The team also visited the Diocese of Legazpi and meet with Bishop Joel Bailon of the Diocese of Legazpi to brief him about the project and partnership with Social Action Center of the diocese.
