P26-M consultancy contract for disaster plans reviewed

THE Cebu provincial government may award by  year end a P26-million consultancy contract for the development of five-year disaster management plans for 51 city and muncipal  governments  in Cebu.

Baltazar Tribunalo Jr., the Capitol’s disaster management chief, said  the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) is negotiating terms of  reference with non-government organization Kaabag sa Sugbo Foundation Inc. in the  post-evaluation stage following a public bidding.

“Hopefully, we will be able to award the project within 2015,” he said during a  Kapistorya session at the Capitol yesterday.

Damage by supertyphoon Yolanda in a street leading to the municipal hall of Daanbantayan town, where the eye of the storm visited northern Cebu in Nov. 8, 2013.

The contract, however, still has to be awarded,  signed by the governor and submitted to the Provincial Board for review.

Three NGOs submitted  bids for  the project  for  “Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in Cebu Province Local Governance: Development of DRRM-CCA and Contingency Plans of 51 LGUs of Cebu (Phase 1).”

The three are Freedom from Debt Coalition, Kaabag, and Naga College Foundation.

Out of the three, Tribunalo said only Kaabag met the criteria set by his office.

According to its website,  Kaabag is “a network of 28 Cebu-based NGOs engaged in various aspects of social development work”.

It is headed by Teresita Fernandez, who also heads Lihok Filipina.

Tribunalo said the criteria  for selection was experience in community-based facilitation and DRRM and contingency planning, strong qualitative data gathering skills, and proficiency in written and spoken Cebuano and English, among others.

He said he expects the project to start  after the contract is awarded.

“If the contract is awarded in December, then I expect the consultants to start by January next year,” he said.

The P26-million project will run for seven months to cover 51 towns and cities with each local government  allocated close to P500,000 each.

The output at the end of the period is a  five-year contingency and DRRM plan for each of the local government units.

The consultant is also expected to come up with the contingency and DRRM plans for Cebu province, a book on tools and designs to conduct DRRM planning and capacity to train personnel from the province and the different LGUs on DRRM.

At present, 42 out of 51 Cebu towns and cities have  DRRM plans while 20 out of 51 have Climate Change Adaptation plans. However, these only cover one year.

Tribunalo said the BAC and the NGO are still discussing the terms of reference.

The  PDRRMO is requiring the consultants to widen the coverage of risk assessment.

Provincial Administrator Mark Tolentino appeared in last Monday’s regular Provincial Board (PB) session to shed light on this pending  consultancy contract.

Tolentino said that he has been interviewed several times to clarify the matter by print and broadcast media.

“The governor advised us and he deems it prudent that maybe the best time for us to explain would be when the documents have already been forwarded to the Provincial Board  and when they have already been awarded,” he said.