The Gawad Kalasag Award
The Gawad Kalasag Award is an annual Presidential Award given to the municipality/ province/ city which has the most exemplary Disaster Coor- dinating Council having the best Contingency Plan and Disaster Prepared- ness/ Disaster Risk Reduction Management Program.
This year, the recipient of the prestigious award is the Municipality of
Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte. Two years ago, the town of Saint Bernard was beset by one of the world’s worst landslides – the Guinsaugon landslide. Calamities have befell the town in the past years, but Saint Bernard was unprepared for the magnitude of the disaster. After the tragedy hazard assessments were conducted by the PHIVOLCS, MGB and CARE Phils and the results revealed that 70% of the total land area of Saint Bernard is highly vulnerable to almost all calamities. Because of the tragedy, Saint Bernard strengthened its existing Municipal Disaster Coordinating Council.
With a new leader at its helm – Rico C. Rentuza – the town has become resilient. With its limited funds being a 4th Class municipality and being pro-active, Mayor Rentuza, together with the MDCC, strengthened the said Council through significant capacity-building projects, regular flood- tsunami-landslide-earthquake drills, incorporating Disaster Preparedness in the Executive-Legislative agenda, small-scale and non-structural mitigation projects, Early Warning Systems – among others. Most of all, these programs would not have been successful without the community.
Indeed, this is a major breakthrough for the Municipality of Saint Bernard. Congratulations Saint Bernard and Congratulations Mayor Rico Rentuza, and may Saint Bernard’s story of survival, resiliency and good governance be an example especially to other disaster-vulnerable areas.
Congratulations also to the pro-active NGOs who gave their support like CARE Phils under the ACCORD Project; GTZ; the PNRC.
Pag-Alerto, Malayo sa Peligro!
