Legazpi City – In a crucial development for regional disaster preparedness and collaboration, the Pacific Partnership 2024-2 (PP24-2) is set to unfold in Legazpi City during the third quarter of 2024, possibly in August.
Pacific Partnership, a joint humanitarian and all-hazard operation in the Indo-Asia Pacific, aims to fortify internal capabilities and resilience against natural disasters. This initiative also focuses on enhancing regional interoperability, response capabilities, and fostering alliances among partner nations.
The activities scheduled for PP24-2 encompass a spectrum of initiatives, each encapsulating one of their four main lines of efforts: Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR), Medical Missions, Host Nation Outreach Events, and Engineering Capability Construction.
A pre-deployment site survey and briefing were held on Wednesday, January 31, at Legazpi City Hall, where the US fleet crew was in attendance along with Legazpi City officials, headed by Legazpi City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Officer Miladee Azur.
Azur stated that, so far, the engineering component of the partnership is set to assist approximately 12 prospective schools. Furthermore, the city requested trainings on incident command systems, emergency operations, urban search and rescue, mountain search and rescue, and geographic information systems and planning under supposed HADR efforts.
The Pacific Partnership’s roots trace back to 2006, with the country being on the receiving end biennially. This will be the second time that the partnership is happening in Albay, but this time Legazpi City has been chosen as the host or primary location of the activity for a duration of two weeks to one month. I Kian Kirby Florano
Photo courtesy: Legazpi City Government