BUTUAN CITY – Media plays a vital role during natural or manmade calamities and media personalities are important during planning for disaster risk reduction, the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) said Tuesday.

The NEDA stressed that media “must be invited” to participate during meetings or discussions of disaster mitigating measures,” said Northern Mindanao NEDA Regional Director Leon M. Dacanay, Jr.

This development came out during last week’s 3rd quarter media forum held at a downtown hotel and convention center in Cagayan de Oro City.

He said the recent “once-in-a-hundred years” flooding in Metro Manila and various areas in Luzon provided an immediate backdrop for the NEDA to engage media on the importance of planning for disaster risk reduction.

The next meeting set anytime this month, NEDA along with the working press will tackle the four-step disaster risk assessment process, an example of quantitative calculation of risk, and explained the benefits of mainstreaming disaster risk reduction (DRR) in local planning.

The region’s NEDA chief said that the DRR Guidelines, which will soon be made available to planners in the region in the next meeting, will provide technical basis and justification for decisions and proposals for disaster risk reduction.

He said the guidelines would allow decision makers to choose the best solution to a risk problem through a benefit-cost analysis.

The Regional Land Use Committee will also present, during the meeting, a study of the Ateneo de Cagayan University on Disaster Risk Mapping at Micro-scale: The Case of Barangay Carmen on Flood Fire, and Earthquake.

Meanwhile, a regular feature of the forum held last week which is a presentation of the region’s economic performance in the 2nd quarter, showed many indicators still on a down trend, compared to the same period last year.