Philippines: Local gov celebration in Saint Bernard focuses on DRR and adventourism

Saint Bernard, Philippines – The Local Government Unit (LGU) of Saint Bernard celebrated its LGU Days in a new and significant manner contrary to the usual celebration of outing, familiarization tour and culmination program. The celebration of the LGU Days is part of the implementation of the national program (through the Human Resources Development Office) or the Career Development Program.

In its advocacy and commitment to making the town and constituents resilient to disasters and to local tourism development, the local government once again took the lead by exemplifying the people’s roles in undertaking relevant activities during its 3-day celebration with the theme “Saint Bernard is Ready, Adventourism, Disaster Risk Reduction”. It also is consistent with the universal theme of “My City is Ready”, or locally, “Saint Bernard, Andam na ang Among Lungsod”.

All municipal employees – including all elected officials, department heads, PNP and BFP – were divided into five groups namely: tsunami, flood, landslide, typhoon and earthquake. Each group was given their own 3-day budgets for expenses in survival – food, water, shelter, fuel, etc, living in tents at the evacuation centers for 2 nights and three days. The allocation of group budgets is symbolic because in actual disasters and events, communities are guided by the policies in MDRRMC Resource Allocation and Relief Distribution.

Activity started with two days of training and exercises on Incidental Command system, Basic First Aid, CPR, Basic Rope Rescue and Basic Mountain Search by the CEVSAR or Central Visayas Search and Rescue Group inc. headed by its President, Dennis M. Cortes. The groups were given the challenge of making it to the top place by tackling ‘obstacles’ in the various events which cover both DRR activities and adventure in tourism.

Nerve-wracking activities like rappelling, water rescue, land rescue, race, trekking, hiking, caving, boating, diving, and swimming were undertaken by the teams in the different tourism areas of barangay Hindag-an, Lipanto, Himbangan, New Guinsaugon, Panian, Poblacion, and Mahayahay. Specifically, the activities were undertaken along local beaches surrounded by lush mountains fronting the blue ocean.

The teams were given scores in the following categories: Attendance, Campsite Arrival, Tent Raising, Bon Fire, Quiz Bee on Disaster Analysis and Relief, Fear Factor obstacle, Roping, Amazing Race, and Cheerdance. The final part of the race involve ‘synchronized’ travel/walking wherein the legs of the participants were all bound which required synchronized technique in traveling and getting to the destination conveniently and fast.

The Landslide group headed by Mayor Rico Rentuza travelled from New Guinsaugon towards the final destination at the municipal auditorium. The culmination program thus begun at 7:00 in the evening of November 12, 2010. As part of its DRR and tourism advocacy, the municipal employees were represented by shirts printed with the corresponding group hazard names and brief IEC (Information Education Campaign).

In addition to the allocated local budget for the LGU Days, the local budget was able to secure assistance from the GTZ (German Technical Cooperation) to support the defray of various expenses relative to operations, training and advocacy.