OCD-NCR, PSBA ink DRR partnership

• Source:https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1025471
• Saturday, August 3, 2019

By Jerome Carlo R. Paunan (PIA InfoComm)

QUEZON CITY (PIA) -- To cap off Metro Manila’s observance of the National Disaster Resilience Month (NDRM), the Office of Civil Defense-National Capital Region (OCD-NCR) and the Philippine School of Business Administration (PSBA) have made official their partnership agreement in order to beef up education courses to meet the challenges in disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM).

During the NDRM culminating event held at Camp Aguinaldo on Tuesday, OCD-NCR regional director Romulo Cabantac Jr. and PSBA president Dr. Jose Peralta signed a letter of intent for “future collaboration” between the two institutions. While, OCD-NCR DRRM Division head Shelby Ruiz and concurrent PSBA Graduate School of Business associate dean and DRM Unit director Tabassam Raza both signed as witnesses.

“The signing you have witnessed today is just to formalize what has been a fruitful partnership that we have with PSBA Manila,” Cabantac said following the deal.

“It also marks the beginning of our efforts to further engage in meaningful collaborative activities that will mutually benefit our institutions and which will ultimately redound to the betterment of DRRM program implementation in Metro Manila,” he added.

Included in the intentions are upcoming partnerships in knowledge acquisition and dissemination; mutual understanding in academic and practical practices exchanges; internship for post-graduate students; resource speakers and advisers as needed for workshops or seminars, and thesis respectively; and other exchange activities, among others.

“We have agreed on collaboration in the field of research, knowledge management and dissemination. We are also willing to accept internship from their post-graduate students who are concentrating on DRR,” Cabantac said.

"This experience will surely benefit all parties including the students, PSBA Manila and the Office of Civil Defence as we also endeavor to boost our human resources to deliver much needed DRRM services to the ground,” he added.

Speaking on behalf of the education institution, Raza said, “After working together for many years, we come to the stage where we have decided that the PSBA, with its academic arm, and the OCD-NCR, with their skill and implementation arm can have a kind of partnership.”

“The local experience is paramount for the success of this [drrm] program, the knowledge, which is captured by OCD from many, many decades [of practice] to transfer it to the academia and play their roles of knowledge dissemination,” Raza added.

It can be recalled that the PSBA has been recognized a number of times as a Regional Gawad KALASAG Awardee for the Higher Education Institution category. The school, meanwhile, started its research arm for DRRM researches and projects in 2001.