Albay Rep. Joey Salceda on Sunday said Congress will approve this month a bill creating the Department of Disaster Resilience.
“Many [of the lawmakers] are interested, like [Senators] Grace Poe and [Richard] Dick Gordon since he is from Red Cross,” he said.
The measure, if passed, would require a P10-billion allocation.
Salceda said the creation of the new agency would require the hiring of more employees.
“The regional offices of the Office of the Civil Defense are not that strong. There are less 10 of them in each region. It is important to have more regional action officers. Let us make it (OCD) bigger to make its presence felt,” he said.
He said President Rodrigo Duterte must certify the measure as urgent so it would have a slim chance of being vetoed.
Some 25 bills have already been filed toward the creation of such an agency.
Quezon City Rep. Alfred Vargas and Tingog party-list Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez have both filed separate bills for the creation of the DDR.
