Add “author” among the many titles one may use for DAP Senior Vice President Gloria Jumamil-Mercado. Mercado, the dean of the Academy’s Graduate School, just helped complete a compendium of best practices that documents the advances made by the civilian and military sectors in coordination work during disasters.
Called “Advances in Civil-Military Coordination in Catastrophes,” the publication has been circulated internationally by the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance, an international network based in Hawaii that assisted in relief operations during the now-legendary Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) that hit Leyte and Eastern Visayas in November 2013.
Graduate School collaboration
Mercado said that in getting involved in the production of the publication, which is also available online, she took advantage of her close involvement as well as that of her Graduate School colleagues in responding to the call for help of Yolanda victims. As the commander for Eastern Visayas of the corps of reservists of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Mercado helped mobilize a wide network of Graduate School alumni and other groups to undertake relief operations.
The network included doctors to the barrios and military personnel working in the area as well as those who were then undergoing the executive development program with the Academy.
The group was able to collect five boatloads of relief goods that the Philippine Navy transported to the then-isolated Tacloban City.
No bystanders
“The experience we then had just showed that we cannot be bystanders during times like this,” Mercado said. She added that the Academy has actually drawn up a system of best practices for various sectors in undertaking relief operations, and she intends to bring this system down and share it with municipal planners.
She, however, also said that there should be more involvement from the Academy’s personnel in disaster relief work, and that the Academy itself should establish a system for its own personnel for them to be able to more easily do volunteer work
Mercado said she’s happy that “Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) brought out the best of the Filipino people” as she paid tribute to those who selflessly worked for their countrymen who fell victim to the super howler and the ensuing storm surge that killed almost 7,000.