The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will launch a technical cooperation project with the Office of Civil Defense to improve the Greater Metro Manila Area’s disaster resilience against tsunamis and earthquakes, an official said Thursday.

OCD Assistant Secretary Bernardo Rafaelito Alejandro IV said during a lecture held at Ateneo that the OCD and JICA were in the'' latter years'' of implementing the second phase of their Disaster Risk Reduction Management (DRRM) capacity management program.

“We are in the latter years been in the implementation of the OCD-JICA DRRM capacity, management program, phase two wherein we have to produce guidebooks to assist our local government units in formulating their enhanced local DRRM plans as primary drivers of local resilience,” Alejandro said.

“Moving forward, JICA is posed to launch a significant technical cooperation project aimed at sustained substantially enhancing the disaster resilience capacity of the greater Metro Manila area or the GMMA, as well as the national government agencies and local government units specifically in the face of earthquakes and tsunamis,” he said.

“This project will not only bolster our structural defenses but will also strengthen our community-based disaster risk management efforts, ultimately fostering a more earthquake and tsunami-resilient Metro Manila,” he added.

Alejandro said the project will also include a comprehensive update of the Metro Manila Earthquake Impact Reduction Study (MMEIRS) in 2004 which ensures that the “region's disaster. preparedness strategies are based on the latest scientific data and global practices.”

He added that they have submitted a formal request to update the study by 2025.

“ It’s up for approval and hopefully, we can move forward with updating the MMEIRS by next year. So it's a long process but we will do it JICA. It will be expanded to include the Greater Manila Area, meaning Cavite, Bulacan because the old study was on Metro Manila,” he said.

For his part, JICA Japan International Cooperative Agency (JICA) Philippine Office Chief Representative Sakamoto Takema said they have recently launched another project with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) “which aims to enhance the resilience insurance system.”

Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Endo Kazuya attended the lecture.

The 5th JICA Chair Lecture series is a joint program of Ateneo de Manila University’s Japanese Studies Program from the School of Social Sciences, JICA, and the Coastal Cities at Risk in the Philippines

The lecture featured Nishikawa Satoru, JICA’s senior adviser on Disaster Reduction Strategy and a professor at Tohoku University, who talked about Japan’s approach to disaster management and the importance of investing before a disaster happens. Jaspearl Tan/DMS