Earthquakes can strike at any time, even in the middle of a pandemic. To help Filipinos prepare and be resilient in times of disaster, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) shared tips on how to stay safe during a disaster, in the first quarter Nationwide Simultaneous Earthquake Drill (NSED) held virtually last March 11, 2021.
Among the participants of the event were the Aboitiz Group, who participated upon the invitation of the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF). The exercise aimed to strengthen the organization’s disaster preparedness and resilience even with the ongoing pandemic.
More notably, the majority of the SBUs campaigned for the event and encouraged team members and their families to do the “duck, cover, and hold” procedure in their respective homes and work areas at the sound of the alarm. Prior to this, an earthquake preparedness webinar was also attended by various SBUs on March 6, 2021 which was similarly conducted by the OCD.
Among the major companies in the country, only Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc. (AEV) through its Risk Management and Physical Assets Security teams and Ayala Property Management Corporation (APMC) participated in the virtual functional exercise conducted by the PDRF on the same day of the NSED.
This particular exercise aimed to test PDRF’s external crisis communication framework and response mechanism amidst a disaster event, including an assessment of the organization’s capability to respond to inquiries and requests from different stakeholders on its various communication platforms.
As a participating company, AEV was tasked to provide injects to PDRF which focused on communications platforms such as asking for earthquake advisories, situation reports, updates on damages, road blockages, status of a certain area, etc. and to provide insights and observations throughout the duration of the exercise in order to improve existing processes.
The PDRF continues to encourage its network or member companies to join the next quarter’s NSED and simulations to remain prepared, resilient, and flexible in confronting natural disasters in a pandemic setting.
