GET to know more of the do’s and don’ts during and after a calamity while navigating the roads with Muntinlupa City’s Mobile Learning Hub (MLH), the first innovative roving educational bus in Metro Manila aimed at improving community resilience and the level of city residents’ disaster preparedness.
Officially launched on January 4, this new offering of the Department of Disaster Resilience and Management (DDRM) is equipped with a state-of-the-art virtual reality (VR) area, where residents can wear headsets to experience being in “close-to-actual” scenarios of disasters such as earthquakes, flooding, storm surges, bomb explosions, chemical poisoning, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and landslides.
Apart from providing immersive, visual and sound-based experience of weather disturbances and calamities, the VR facility seeks to train residents on ways to respond to them properly.
The DDRM MLH also has an interactive lecture area with informative videos on pandemic protective measures, disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness, first-aid response and management, as well as basic life support, among others.
Muntinlupa City DDRM (MC-DDRM) Chief Erwin Alfonso said the learning bus targets to mainstream disaster response by bringing learning resources to communities and vulnerable sectors.
He added that, as the MLH is expected to visit several communities despite the ongoing pandemic, health and safety protocols will be strictly implemented, and regular disinfection of the facility will be conducted.
MC-DDRM will release the schedule of the roving learning bus through its Facebook page soon.
Muntinlupa City Mayor Jaime R. Fresnedi hopes the learning bus will empower Muntinlupeños to become well-prepared on disasters and calamities, as well as enhance their level of preparedness and awareness on climate-change adaptation and disaster risk reduction.
Recently, the local disaster response department also installed an early-warning system across the city to inform communities in a timely manner about typhoon signal warnings, severe flooding and earthquakes, among others.
The Southern Metro Manila city was ranked No. 1 in the Resilience Pillar-Highly Urbanized Cities category of the 2020 Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index organized by the Department of Trade and Industry, as well as the National Competitiveness Council. It bested at least 145 local government units in the country, as the Cities of Valenzuela and Manila, respectively, followed it in the listing.