The earthquake drill of the City Government of Mati has been declared as generally “fair to satisfactory” by the evaluators who made observation on the implementation of the second city-wide drill for this year.
In an evaluation after the drill held at the City Council session hall Friday, July 26, most of the evaluators observed the lack of equipment from most of the participating schools, establishments, and government offices.
Evaluators also noticed the medical teams who failed to identify priority patients who need the most medical attention before transporting them to the emergency operation center located at the Mati City Sports Complex.
Evaluators also noted the lack of disaster action plan from a few of the participating establishments.
The Capitol where the provincial government holds office meanwhile received a “fair” grade due to the lack of seriousness from the participating employees who were observed to be chatting while the siren was ongoing.
The evaluator said that despite the impressive equipment of the provincial building, there is a lot of room needed for serious participation of the employees.
In the City Hall, the evaluator observed that the evacuation area identified by the city must be away from big trees that could possibly fall down. The evaluator also observed that there is a need to improve the buddy-buddy system.
The evaluator also observed the fast activation of the search and rescue teams in City Hall. The evaluator said there is an average of 5:30 minutes from the time of the first siren to the time the participating employees were able to reach the evacuation area. The evaluator rated City Hall’s performance as “fair”.
Joseph Pugatoryo of the Department of Interior and Local Government said that with the rating, there needs to be a lot of improvement and more drills in the City of Mati to ensure that the people would be well-equipped and capable in case a strong tremor happens.
“It’s better to be OA (over-acting) than be sorry,” Purgatoryo said.
Mati City Administrator Atty. Al Aquino who represented Mayor Michelle Nakpil Rabat also saw the need to conduct more drills especially so that Mati City would be the pilot area of the national earthquake drill and World Tsunami Day come November 2020.
Mati City sits at the end of the Philippine Fault System with the Mati segment having no movement for the past 400 years. The Mati segment, experts say, is ripe for an earthquake and could be the source of the Big One that would not only affect Mati but Davao City as well. (CIO MATI)
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