AB007. Health-DRR nexus: where is the rub?—a case study on the Philippines’ response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic
Abstract

AB007. Health-DRR nexus: where is the rub?—a case study on the Philippines’ response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

Ebinezer Florano

National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines

Correspondence to: Ebinezer Florano. National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Manila, Philippines. Email: efloranoy@yahoo.com.

Background: This paper reviews the theoretical, legal, and operational links between health emergency management and disaster risk reduction (DRR) in the context of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. While the Sendai Framework for DDR recognizes epidemics and pandemics as among the biological hazards that should be addressed in DRR, there seems to be a disconnect in the way the world, and national governments treated DRR of the SFDRR and the Health Emergency Disaster Risk Management (Health-EDRM) framework adopted by the WHO in 2019. An initial study on the topic notes the “silo” between the two when it stated that “there is no mention of disaster at all within the WHO COVID-19 technical guidance” and “it is not clear whether COVID-19 is leading to collaboration between the WHO and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction”. At the country level, it has been noted that countries took dramatically different implementation approaches in managing the pandemic.

Methods: This paper examines the theoretical, legal, and inter-operational relationships between DRR and Health-EDRM at the national and local levels as the Philippine government responds to the threats of COVID-19. The case at the national level and three case studies at the local level are analysed through key informants’ interview and document analysis.

Results: The study found out that the COVID-19 pandemic management in the Philippines, whether at the national or local level, has been led mostly by the health sector. However, the DRR sector closely collaborates with it on a case-to-case basis because different local governments have different levels of pandemic management capabilities.

Conclusions: There are still lingering questions whether the DRR sector should just focus on responding to disasters caused by natural hazards and/or still be at the forefront of pandemic management. If in the case of the latter, the follow-up question is—could and should its roles/tasks be standardized nationwide?

Keywords: Public health emergency; disaster risk reduction; coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19 pandemic)

Acknowledgments

Funding: This article is supported by University of the Philippines Resilience Institute.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The author is accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

doi: 10.21037/jphe-21-ab007
Cite this abstract as: Florano E. AB007. Health-DRR nexus: where is the rub?—a case study on the Philippines’ response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. J Public Health Emerg 2021;5:AB007.

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